Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

Mole HD

Mole HD
Viajero said:
This still PTU?
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Yup, the new 3.15.1 patch which will be the freefly/expo live release in around a weeks time (19th)...3.15.0 just went live and they're straight into another PTU cycle for the perennial November marketing drive....although this year in particular, all those marketing events just run into one another. We've had one practically every month so far. In the expo 3.15.1 release, there's some new flyable ships...Redeemer, Ares things... and according to SC leaks, a few other unadvertised ships...Argo Raft etc. But...got to have nice clouds for all the newbies to gawp at as they're getting their wallets out. After all, making a working game for us long suffering players is far less important than raking in cash from selling digital assets to new cash buyers 😐
 
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LanceLord

LanceLord
LittleAnt said:
And yet went on to make one of the best, most feature prolific cowboy game in the industry. With a core crew of TWO THOUSAND people...
Why Rockstar need 2 000 employees to make one cowboy game when other company can deliver a full space game with TWENTY SIX people !!! You don't even have to put fly mechanisms in a cowboy game, just horses !
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What the Sam Hill?

Dude seriously. No offense but the logic in your argument here is just 100% @S$ end backwards.

Disregarding your honest typo in the first sentence, you simply CANNOT compare RDR2 to SC (nvm NMS). Simply because first, RDR2 and SC are two completely DIFFERENT genres. Which appeal to two completely DIFFERENT fan bases. Especially where gamer mindset and game world preferences are concerned.

RDR2 :
a highly immersive/realistic/interactive world. That was released AS A COMPLETE GAME. Which performs as it was initially designed to be: a SINGLE PLAYER, PvE focused, open world exploration, highly interactive, earth based world. Which has a solid balance of well structured missions/numerous engaging side quests v. endless hours of sandbox PvE gameplay. And this is before you add the fact RDR franchise has had ELEVEN+ YEARS of RELEASED game/lore related content. Thanks to the release of its precursor title RDR 1 back in 2010. With multiple DLC for said progenitor title, and ongoing season passes for the successor RDR2 to date...

NMS:
a highly immersive/interactive world. That was released AS A COMPLETE GAME. That -- by default of its procedurally generated universe -- has a game mechanic that centers on exploration. And which has significantly branched out to add other fan base requested features. Besides the exploration game loop, this RELEASED GAME now has completely FUNCTIONAL combat, political, trade, crafting/salvaging and survival game loops. It has FUNCTIONAL RNG space based flora AND fauna that occupy the procedurally generated worlds you encounter. The RNG fauna is both humanoid AND animal based. And the humanoid races are all intelligent with their defined alien languages and culture. Which your PC needs to learn before they can effectively communicate with them....

Besides its strong sandbox exploration game mechanic, NMS also features light RPG/PvE elements (aka a well structured MQ storyline). It even has weakly anorexic PvP game play which balances out the PvE game play. And that's before you add the icing of supporting features like player base/world building, player agency with trade, dev promoted community building with game events like Expeditions #1 - #4 to date etc. etc. Or the TONS of DLC that have been released for this COMPLETED SPACE GAME to date. Heck, its tiny 26 man dev team even had the luxury time to add a complete graphics overhaul update over a year ago. And ALL of these QoL features/huge patch updates (like the recent alien settlement/base building game mechanic) has been FREE aka NOT microtransaction driven.

SC:
a highly immersive/realistic/interactive world. That -- by default of BEING STUCK IN LIMBO IN ALPHA STATUS-- has yet to be released as a COMPLETE GAME to date. This UHD/ultra realistic environment is based in SPACE, NOT EARTH. Within the space environment of a single, unfinished solar star system. Which was initially designated as a PvE SINGLE PLAYER GAME. But over time, experienced terrifying scope creep into a MMO That permanently transformed it into a gargantuan, space sandbox life simulator tech demo that's suffers from unbalanced PvP on 'roid rage. And that's all because of the ongoing glaring deficit of critical game play content, game play loops, non existent lore based alien NPC humanoids, incomplete/unreliable exisitng NPCs (and their even more buggier AI) etc. NVM all the other critical missing world assets necessary to complete the game's design infrastructure. Which btw, would move this glorified UHD tech demo's production milestone into BETA STATUS...

TL; DR
RDR2 v NMS v SC. You can't compare apples to vegetables. Which aren't even in the same gaming genre nvm whether they're a post beta, fully released game title or not. So zero comparison whatsoever where production team sizes are concerned IMO.
 
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Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Viajero
LittleAnt said:
And yet went on to make one of the best, most feature prolific cowboy game in the industry. With a core crew of TWO THOUSAND people...
Why Rockstar need 2 000 employees to make one cowboy game when other company can deliver a full space game with TWENTY SIX people !!! You don't even have to put fly mechanisms in a cowboy game, just horses !
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The answer is actually quite simple, Rockstar gets to decide about whatever resources they need to do RDR2 and to deliver it to the quality they aim because they can do it. They have the competency and track record, and have delivered it. They are also using their own money and and bear any risk themselves. And they seem to have put all those devs to good use.

On the other hand CIG does not have neither the competency nor the track record, is running into all kinds of management and technical issues and SC is still in alpha after 10+ years of development. They are doing that not with their money but with backers money, which they have an ethical obligation to be good stewards of, and so CIG is not bearing any risk thereof at all. So, no, going for high hundreds, never mind thousand devs, in CIG´s case has just been a gigantic waste of resources and backers money.
 
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McGlashan

McGlashan
Another key difference is Rockstar wasn't working on the principle of unlimited funding. RDR2 was crazy expensive, but they already had the money because they've made a slew of massively successful games. What is SC's target budget? Of course no one knows, it's a meaningless question, Roberts once boasted about adjusting development month-to-month according to how much they raised. As we've seen that means it's impossible for them to plan anything at all. It means there's a massive amount of waste, because they don't know what features they're going to be selling a month from now, and "refactoring" has become a staple of CIG's workflow. That wasted time and effort means that what we see today is absolutely not representative of the $400m (or whatever it is now) they've already spent. It's why they're still pushing a tech demo that isn't even a vertical slice, after a decade.

From the point of view of delivering a real AAA product (which Rockstar does routinely) SC has been catastrophically poorly managed. From the point of view of lining the pockets of the Roberts clan, on the other hand, it's been very effective.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
McGlashan said:
Another key difference is Rockstar wasn't working on the principle of unlimited funding. RDR2 was crazy expensive, but they already had the money because they've made a slew of massively successful games. What is SC's target budget? Of course no one knows, it's a meaningless question, Roberts once boasted about adjusting development month-to-month according to how much they raised. As we've seen that means it's impossible for them to plan anything at all. It means there's a massive amount of waste, because they don't know what features they're going to be selling a month from now, and "refactoring" has become a staple of CIG's workflow. That wasted time and effort means that what we see today is absolutely not representative of the $400m (or whatever it is now) they've already spent. It's why they're still pushing a tech demo that isn't even a vertical slice, after a decade.

From the point of view of delivering a real AAA product (which Rockstar does routinely) SC has been catastrophically poorly managed. From the point of view of lining the pockets of the Roberts clan, on the other hand, it's been very effective.
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I think sometimes backers use arguments that actually do the opposite of what they intend.

For example, when they point to games like GTA and RDR2 taking X number of years and Y budget, and therefore its fine that CIG have taken in close to 500 million and 10 years to produce an Alpha, they don't think what this really means.

If it takes a competent studio those years and that much money, with established frameworks and engines, for games of alleged much smaller scope, what does this mean for SC/SQ42?

It probably means CIG need in excess of 1 billion and another 10 years to make a game that halfway represents what they were sold.

They are going to have to keep opening their wallets for many more years to keep this thing afloat, by which time their life circumstances or tastes have changed to the point they are no longer interested or can't play or other games have come along that have grabbed their attention.
 

LanceLord

LanceLord
Viajero said:
Going for hundreds of devs in this case is just a gigantic waste of resources and backers money.
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I've now firmly convinced myself this is genuinely CR's exit strategy.. A bankruptcy exist milestone.

What better way to save face, keep your multi million dollar residence/lifestyle, avoid a radioactive/toxic PR fallout (that will likely rival Bugthesda's failed Fallout 76 release in term of drama), and save yourself millions in potential, drawn out litigation? That inevitable day is coming. When CI will have to admit to itself that it's finally milked its fan base bone dry of pledge money.

The couple hundred? or so whales with their highly disposable incomes, can only prop up the entire dreams.txt universe for so long. The poorer working class peasant masses are only going to afford its shopping spree binges (to buy the latest CitizenCon space ship shiny) for so long. Especially if they have irl obligations like family/kids/school/work etc.

And regardless of age or disposable income, ppl DO grow old. Which means the fan base will eventually die off over the next decade (or more likely more).

All this tragedy can be avoided if CI would strive to release a game by the time Bugthesda gets around to dropping TES VI. And definitely by the time R* returns from whatever dev limbo it's been vacationing in this past half decade to release GTA VI.

OR

CI could do what I'm starting to heavily speculate on. Head down the well trodden path of financial insolvency and bankruptcy. It's the easiest, most efficient way to cleanly divorce/sever itself from it's fanbase.

Change my mind
 
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Mole HD

Mole HD
Agony_Aunt said:
I think sometimes backers use arguments that actually do the opposite of what they intend.

For example, when they point to games like GTA and RDR2 taking X number of years and Y budget, and therefore its fine that CIG have taken in close to 500 million and 10 years to produce an Alpha, they don't think what this really means.

If it takes a competent studio those years and that much money, with established frameworks and engines, for games of alleged much smaller scope, what does this mean for SC/SQ42?

It probably means CIG need in excess of 1 billion and another 10 years to make a game that halfway represents what they were sold.

They are going to have to keep opening their wallets for many more years to keep this thing afloat, by which time their life circumstances or tastes have changed to the point they are no longer interested or can't play or other games have come along that have grabbed their attention.
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They also conveniently forget that RDR2 made Rockstar $725 million profit during the first 2 days of it's release. Total sales of GTA5 to date are in the region of $911 million...despite both those games being developed without asking me for a handout :)
 
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Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Mole HD said:
They also conveniently forget that RDR2 made Rockstar $725 million profit during the first 2 days of it's release. Total sales of GTA5 to date are in the region of $911 million...despite both those games being developed without asking me for a handout :)
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And don't forget the lovely P2W shark cards that you can buy. Although i'm sure certain people would say buying in game currency isn't pay to win. Its what they argue for SC anyway.
 

varonica

varonica
Agony_Aunt said:
I think sometimes backers use arguments that actually do the opposite of what they intend.

For example, when they point to games like GTA and RDR2 taking X number of years and Y budget, and therefore its fine that CIG have taken in close to 500 million and 10 years to produce an Alpha, they don't think what this really means.
Click to expand...

The thing is all these arguments are pointless because they are examining an imaginary metric, one that can mean anything they want.

A better way would be to look at the man hours versus completed game. So if Rockstar has 2,000 people working on a game for one year and that's fully released after than one year you can work out based an average working day how many man hours it has taken and that's your investment in building that game. If SC has taken 10 years so far with 700 people working on it that's already way more man hours invested in that game and it's nowhere near release, so how many people working on producing a game isn't relevant in any way shape or form, in the end it's how many man hours invested to create that game that is a better metric.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
varonica said:
The thing is all these arguments are pointless because they are examining an imaginary metric, one that can mean anything they want.

A better way would be to look at the man hours versus completed game. So if Rockstar has 2,000 people working on a game for one year and that's fully released after than one year you can work out based an average working day how many man hours it has taken and that's your investment in building that game. If SC has taken 10 years so far with 700 people working on it that's already way more man hours invested in that game and it's nowhere near release, so how many people working on producing a game isn't relevant in any way shape or form, in the end it's how many man hours invested to create that game that is a better metric.
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There's a much simpler metric

Games released.

Let's count from the time CIG started working on SC

Rockstar - 6 full games (not counting revamps etc) by my count. Am counting RDR2 and RDO and GTA5 and GTA:Online as separate games, since CIG count SQ42 and SC as separate games.

CIG - 0
 

Vasious

Vasious
varonica said:
The thing is all these arguments are pointless because they are examining an imaginary metric, one that can mean anything they want.

A better way would be to look at the man hours versus completed game. So if Rockstar has 2,000 people working on a game for one year and that's fully released after than one year you can work out based an average working day how many man hours it has taken and that's your investment in building that game. If SC has taken 10 years so far with 700 people working on it that's already way more man hours invested in that game and it's nowhere near release, so how many people working on producing a game isn't relevant in any way shape or form, in the end it's how many man hours invested to create that game that is a better metric.
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Though no one would have the figures for the outsourcing ne?
 

varonica

varonica
Vasious said:
Though no one would have the figures for the outsourcing ne?
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Well no that's true, but you can't just say well Rockstar had 2000 people working on X and CIG only have 700 working on Y therefore CIG is better at making games, there's no metric there at all.
 

Ebob

E
Eating Gameplay incoming!
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