A Skeptic's First Steps into Star Citizen
Part Six: Conclusions
(Part One)
(Part Two)
(Part Three)
(Part Four)
(Part Five)
The free fly event is over, much to my disappointment, I'm somewhat surprised to say. Despite the issues experienced, I wasn't
quite willing to let my adventures in the ironically named 'Verse end. I'd barely scratched the surface by the time it had ended. Thankfully, I'm not at all willing to allow a wastrel like Chris Roberts benefit financially off of me either, so I'm not about to buy back in. Especially when I consider how utterly unethical his abuse of the crowd-funding model is. But if I was unaware of this project's history and said abuse? I could definitely see myself naively buying in to this project after what I experienced in the game. There were flaws and frustrations, sure, but
much of that frustration stemmed from my knowledge of how Star Citizen was
originally pitched. The game as originally pitched wasn't supposed to be like
this.
My primary motivation for participating in this free fly was to test the capabilities of my new computer. When I bought it, I
knew I'd want to test it against Star Citizen, a game which is rather notorious for eating powerful machines for breakfast. It can handle Elite Dangerous Odyssey in VR, even in settlements. But SC? It typically got less than 30 fps. IMO, this is a playable rate for the things I typically enjoy, since I'm definitely not into the pew-pew. Perhaps, now that I'd gotten past the "admire all the hard work the artists did" stage of the new game experience, I'll be able to dive deeper into the meat of this game. Because I'm definitely going to try out the next free fly event as well.
My secondary motivation was to see for myself where all the money had gone besides into the coffers of the Roberts' clan, because what I'd seen in live streams certainly didn't
look like a $400 million+ game, and it didn't seem to
play like a $400 million+ game. But I've learned over the years that a good live streamer can make a game look more entertaining than it actually is, and watching someone
else play a game can be a very different experience than actually playing it yourself.
And I was right. My innately curious nature had me poking my nose into areas not normally seen on streams, and there were a
lot of lavishly detailed areas that had no in-game function what-so-ever. Conversely, there were a lot of areas that seemed half-finished, or barely started, and were later abandoned. And this was just a
fraction of
one area in the game. I could've easily spent the
entirety of the free fly event soaking in the exquisite details of the area I started in, as well as those of the free ships themselves, without
ever having delved into the actual game play.
Which makes me wonder... given my knowledge of CIG's senior leadership, was this perhaps on purpose? Were the starting areas designed to waste players time, to distract them long enough that they get a false impression of what the game is
really like? I'm not normally one to assume malice when there are simpler answers... but given CIG's history, perhaps malice
is the simpler answer.
In just about every game I've ever played, the starting areas are
designed to cater to the newbie gamer. Shops with the starting equipment they need are easy to find, the exits are conveniently close. New Babbage was a labyrinthine sprawl of confusing passages, dead ends, wasted space, and shops that were
worthless to a newbie player. The primary exception to this trend are procedurally generated open worlds, and even some of
them still managed this feat.
I've frequently compared this game to a white-washed tomb, a fair exterior that disguises the rot contained within. There has been a
lot of time and money spent on unnecessary artwork for a game that's at the Alpha stage of its development, used to convince the unwary that this project is legit. It's also possible I'm just being cynical, which is especially easy to be after following development of this game, and New Babbage was yet another example of Roberts being Roberts.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter either way for me, because there's no way I'd buy into this game until it's released and on sale. But if the game's free? I think it's worth a second dive.
