Not long enough.
It's fascinating to watch the progression over time as the reality sinks in. Captain Berks and Moist Noodle for example, are starting to sound more like SaltEMike.
Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
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It's fascinating to watch the progression over time as the reality sinks in. Captain Berks and Moist Noodle for example, are starting to sound more like SaltEMike.That 'bestest evarrr game' concept is almost exactly what CIG offered. A choice was offered to the community - sit with something that's basically a tarted up Freelancer / Wing Commander (set features go to release) or push it as far as is possible.
Overwhelmingly the backers at the time went (admittedly with a 'no answer means yes' type arrangement) for the pushing of things. I actually was a kickstarterbacker before that, and paid in money after. I don't regret it - as an ex game dev I've found the project really interesting to watch.
The only thing I'm not particularly fond of is the continual pushing of new ships - some of which get in game way faster than previously slotted/sold ones.
In terms of framework, they're definitely getting there. There is of course a huge mass of content to squeeze in, but I do think that much of it will fall into place relatively quickly, as CIG have picked an initial system which includes several very major art styles (major human corporations that make pretty much everything) as well as a massive variety of biomes. They've made the lego bricks pretty well, let's see what they do with them. Other gimmicks like FOIP and inbuild face/eye tracking seem to be working. Ish.
I think the networking may be the major issue. I'd actually look into a far more instanced mechanism than they seem to plan - that is instancing based on player group (elite style) over and above the open instancing-based-on-player-location/population.
The thing is that even there, Chris was promising that backers could have their cake and eat it...
Get more stuff even faster. Who wouldn't say yes
And yet here we are. With one solar system (and only slightly more than one profession
), in 2021. (And a morass of expensive ships with none of their USP gameplay functions...)This seems like the most likely outcome. But they seem to be spending a lot of time not getting the miracle mesh to work first...
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Some lore bits and the general setting arent lego bits. The project lacks serious thechnical solutions. A pile of story and characters doesnt advance it in any form.
This part is the most ridiculous aspect of that "vote". It is interesting how CIG decided to organise a vote on whether people should continue showering them with money (under a false premise, courtesy of @VR Golgot ) and then set it up in a way that was self-resolving to "yesssss, gib more ssssspice".
No responsible company would do that, of course.
The problem with EDO is its too big, i'm saying that because i assume there are more than 3 styles of moon and more than one style side of moon side LZ?
Maybe i have to go even further because it all looks the same to me, its all the same featureless brown moon with the same base.
I don't mean to be disparaging but while the criticism that SC is only one system, lol pathetic. it has 100X the variety and quite a lot of does give you that sense of wonder from exploration.
It feels like there is more work gone into this than there has into half of EDO.
This is what arriving at an LZ should be.
There is a lot more where that ^^^^ came from
Source: https://youtu.be/gkhoYqs9imw?t=138
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Yeah, I think perhaps you do
Source: https://imgur.com/a/yQ6R31o
That's cool on not feeling the big empty ED proc gen thing and preferring a more bespoke set up.
You're kind of missing one of the core reason SC gets spanks for the single system though. That'd be the 99 missing systems underneath it
(To misquote MosDef)Chris and co sold numerous exploration ships, and associated mechanics, as part of the promise of a far larger scale of exploration and discovery...
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Having a single system is not pathetic at all. A single star system gives plenty of room for thousands of locations, lore tidbits etc. It can be beautiful and absolutely massive. Most of the criticism I saw (or levied myself) is about it being a single star system out of a hundred promised, after so much time and money have been spent. And the fact that CIG are producing more and more beautiful versions of it, is slowing down the delivery of that promised hundred.
As to EDO - absolutely, it is procedural and will be repetitive. On the visual surface real space, in general, is dark and samey. Same materials distributed similarly by similar processes all across. It is aesthetically interesting on rare occasions, with a lot of tedium in between. It is becoming more interesting when you study the forces behind it, the radiation, all the astrophysics stuff. But this is not part of ED, ED mirrors only the physical exploration or what it could look like.
There is an enormous mass of art assets done and in game. It looks stunning, and the procgen for outposts / station interiors is far ahead of Elite's. Each art style (set of modules) looks visually distinct and, well, it's bang on. Very well done. If you're measuring (designed) content against content, SC has been thrashing Elite for years. They have a team of several hundred, masses of cash in the bank (and income), and what, about 8 or 9 studios now? You should expect that.
But, the 'server meshing' mechanism is where the crux of the problem for SC's 'persistent universe' lies.
That is a technical issue that has been unresolved for several years now; they've been building things to try and work around it (object container streaming, 'network LOD') but to update and propogate the sheer amount of network-visible objects between servers is still 'an interesting problem'. I used to work on MMO code (even designed a simple server-meshing (of sorts) infrastructure in the past) so I do find it fascinating.
It's just a case that both games are offering the same sort of experience, but have come at it from very different development philosophies. Elite (with Odyssey) now seems to be hitting the limits of the framework FDev originally put together. SC still hasn't quite decided on when to cut the fat of unrequired features (do we really need to know the O2 / CO2 mix in an environment?, do we really need FOIP and the additional network overhead?, does a ship really need to have 40 odd individually updating and gimballed thrusters and attachments?).
Note, I'm not saying SC will succeed, far from it. They're trying, so it'd be hard to label it a 'scam', but it's certainly not what was originally on the kickstarter page either.
But neither is Elite, yet. Some things (VR, interiors) are being implied now as non-features ('we can't think of a gameplay reason for it'), so we'll have to be careful of revisionism.
Edit: I think SC's system count is supposed to be somewhere north of 200 'at live' now. I suspect we may see some repetition of art style (but not as much as Elite where even each of the 3 superpower's settlements, which you'd think would be natural artstyle breaks are pretty much identical).
I hope it doesn't become too big, even 100 star systems if they average half as much detail and content as Stanton is too big, you can get lost in it light years away from another human player.
It may seem trivial but its nice to land somwhere and find a human player already there, the bigger it get the less likely that will happen.
I think 20 good star systems is enough, quality over quantity, 20 to me seems the right number for a balance of variation and its enough to make the whole thing feel huge.
The next two that are being worked on, Pyro and Nyx are very different from eachother and very different from Stanton, that's what i want, less but not one a copy of another.
There are dual issues here though.
A) Some of that existing fat is high-end sirloin stuff. It's had AAA assets lavished on it. More than a normal prototype would during standard gaming R&D. It's gonna be both a wrench to get rid of, and in some cases, an outright pain perhaps. (Do you need to remodel your ship again to remove those interactive module bays? What happens to the fancy mobile turret you just sold on your pseudo-X-wing if it proves untenable?)
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/mi9evo/all_new_access_on_gladius_ptu_313/
B) They're still layering on stuff that looks very much like future fat to be cut. Chris's gas system that needs to be piped into all of the ships, able to be struck by a stray bullet from space. That's if the bullet (and the networking?) can handle the bizarre plan to add material properties to the existing ship materials at this stage, altering centre mass and damage properties etc, but constrained by the visual designs created to date.
They're still slapping on the excess merrily.
But I do agree on the future need for a prune being inevitable. And they should probably stop tracking argon now
I'd be interested to hear any thoughts you have on how other teams may be impacted by the wait for server meshing. Like we see an obvious fallout in their missed deadlines on getting a 2nd system into the game. But presumably design and engineering in other departments will also be fairly roadblocked in what they can do until the networking architecture is in a firmer place?
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Great, let's judge it like a released product then!
Go ahead. Tell us all how you'd accept SC in its current form as a released product.
Tell us, truthfully, what do you think the critical response to SC would be if it was released in its current state?
No need to answer really. It would get totally panned. We'd be seeing headlines like "500 million and 9 years for this trash?!" and "Chris Roberts once again fails to deliver on his dreams"
Oh, wait.... i forgot, once it needs defending then we can always cry ITS ALPHA!
Completely missing the point. I'm saying judge SC by the same yardstick you would judge any other project. SC/CIG shouldn't be treated any different to any other project.
Ah, there's always a reason why SC is better than any other product.
If something looks good its because its missing something else. If it has something else its because it doesn't look as good. Meanwhile no mention of the things other games have that SC doesn't.
Its always "I like SC because it has A+B+C+D and the other game has A+B but not C+D" (while failing to note that other game has E+F+G+H.....)
And if SC then gets E, then backers then add E to their list of reasons for enjoying SC whereas before somehow, it wasn't a component they were interested in, because other game had it, but SC didn't.
Well, got to say, what other game (will) add immersion like taxes, insurance, and hygene mechanics!
Charming bingo thing that allow you to dismiss some simple facts and realities about SC
A real vote with huge consequences, what a strange thing, for sure it's of no value...Yes, backers voted for it. They voted twice in fact. First time on a form long ago, the other time with a constant flow of money (and this vote continue).
Considering they still need hundreds of millions more and many more years for even an MVP release, and we are now in 2021, this just shows how CR was once again talking out of his rear end.
To "complete" SC, it would take billions and decades at their current rate.
Historical revisionism.
They were offering the BDSSE since day 1. Go watch the marketing materials again. Go look at what CIG were saying. It wasn't just a tarted up Freelancer/WC (funny the Freelancer part though, since CR failed to deliver on that and needed MS to release a very much cut down product). The scope was already massive.
What they then did was take the scope for a game that would have taken many years and well over 100 million to product and went crazy with the scope.
And while its funny how backers like to say its their own decision to expand the scope like happened, at the end of the day CIG could have said "No guys, let's deliver on what we have promised already, then we will look at adding more. We've already got years of work and its going to take all the money we've got and possibly more to deliver". And maybe they knew that, which is why they expanded the scope to keep the funding going.
But no, it was not "overwhelmingly". The second vote was 55% said yes with the remaining either saying no or abstaining.
And why did so many vote yes? Well, A, because people are idiots, and if you ask them if they want more they will usually say yes, without giving thought to what it will mean, but B, CIG went even further, with CR saying on more than one occasion that with more money they could deliver more without delaying release. Thereby showing he has zero clue about project management.
And yet, for years we've heard backers say the expanded scope, which they "overwhelmingly" voted in favour of, is the reason its taking so long.
But what backers actually voted on was should CIG continue to offer stretch goals, but those stretch goals would NOT delay release.
Funny how backers like to forget this part.
Let's give the backers the illusion of agency by letting them vote and guide the project (thus removing CIG even further from culpability) - what could go wrong?
Except after the vote, CR's comment of "sooner rather than later" didn't really happen, and the backers have the hood ornament and one of the wheels.
This is why my doctor doesn't ask me to vote on how she should treat me, and why the person who built my house didn't ask me to draw up the blueprints.
Except after the vote, CR's comment of "sooner rather than later" didn't really happen, and the backers have the hood ornament and one of the wheels.
This is why my doctor doesn't ask me to vote on how she should treat me, and why the person who built my house didn't ask me to draw up the blueprints.
I'm not sure how many CIG have said they want to add in total, but backers only paid for 110.