2018 was by far the best year for Star Citizen, with moons landing, cargo, mining, OCS which drastically improved performance, Rest Stops, the release of the first planet and major landing zone, with two mission givers and their associated missions.
2019 started off pretty well with the release of ArcCorp, its mission giver, the new flight model or ingame ship purchase,
But then came the major postponement of the majority of features most expected by backers, with the "staggered development" as justification.
Staggered development
According to CIG this should slow down development on the first patches, but then accelerate it, limited postponement, bring more complete features, and above all improve the player experience, quality of life, reduce the number of bugs etc...
The problem is that the development indeed slowed down, but then never accelerated.
Updates have been more and more late, postponements were more and more important, patches buggy as ever, and the quality of life has even deteriorated with a server framerate which has come down constantly since 3.8, making any fps combat, interaction with NPC, or party with other players barely playable because of the desync.
Useless, broken and abandoned new features
Some priorities have been questionable like Prison, or just incomprehensible such as the extension of Grim Hex and the Cargo Decks, of which we are still awaiting the associated "missions" described on the roadmap, and which have not been used for nothing since their implementation.
The last two landing zones were introduced without their mission giver, and with zero associated missions, while these missions had been teased at CitizenCon 2019 for New Babbage and in different ISC for Orison, nothing on the roadmap.
Most of the new features come out in a broken tier 0 and seem to be totally dropped right after their introduction :
Ships naming for example, only possible with 6-7 ships, not functioning properly, absent from new ships sold, no news since.
Docking, only available for 2 ships that less than 1% of players own, no news about round docking collar, nothing on the roadmap.
Wear and tear, which 15 ships were excluded at the time of the release, no news.
New caves teased as being able to be crossed by ship, or to mine with a ROC, which are finally just new entrance which does not bring anything new in terms of gameplay.
wheeled cart which is useless, and will probably be replaced by a hover model.
UI
Over a year to convert the elevator panels to Buidling block, another year to convert the ship hud to building block, the last ships released still have place holder for the majority of their UI panels, while Buidling block was supposed to drastically accelerate artists work.
I can't imagine how many years it will take to convert all ship HUDs to their respective manufacturer.
The Star Map has been waiting to be reworked for years, like the shopping kiosks which are an eyesore to navigate.
It looks like anything related to UI takes years.
Ships
Ships, which must now all be updated to Gold Standard (without physical armor, internal pipeline, depresurization, fire, escape pod, engineer station, probs etc...), it took ONE year to make the Gladius, the Retaliator and the Saber which was on the roadmap for this year has been delayed, how long will it take to upgrade the fifty or so ships left ?
We are at the tenth iteration of the flight model but still no control surfaces in atmosphere.
Ship customization like the 300i ? gone, ingame customization ? nope.
Number of ships released in the past years (not counting ground vehicules and variants) :
In 2018 we had 15 ships,
In 2019 we had 10 ships,
In 2020 we had 7 ships
In 2020 we should have 6 ships (C2, 400i, Ares, Reedemer, RAFT, Hull C)
CoreTech
Gen 12 renderer, which was due to arrive in 2020, then mid 2021, which is now partially implemented but whose work will continue in 2022 and probably 2023
iCache and full peristance, planned for mid 2020, then mid 2021, then end 2021 without the physical inventory which must now arrive mid 2022, and what about full persistence ? the famous coffee cup which remains on a moon, no date anymore.
They just delayed a
Q&A about Server Meshing, wich has been delayed since 2018.
2022
Here we are, when you read the monthly reports or look at the progress tracker it seems that a lot of things have progressed, but what ends up in the hands of players in the PU is rickety.
2022 is supposed to be extraordinary with most people waiting for full persistence + server meshing, jumps point, Pyro, maybe Nyx, homesteads, several new gameplay, floodgates finally opening and development starting at a new pace.
Unfortunately with the new delays, empty roadmap, and announcement of the prioritization of SQ42, I have the impression of reliving a new "staggered development", I am more and more afraid that we are witnessing a new year in line with the previous two.
robertsspaceindustries.com
