Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

[Agony_Aunt]

Says a moderator of the competitor's forum who also has a clear interest to appeal to the Elite Dangerous community, making your opinion equally suspect IMO. You are the LittleAnt of Elite Dangerous, LOL. Quite the sales pitch you have there! Do you work for Frontier? If not, you should apply for a job in their marketing department. I hear Odyssey could use some help with its Steam reviews.

If you can ad hominem Drew's opinions out of existence due to his supposed biases, then I can do the same with yours.

So, you're saying you've never seen @Viajero be highly critical of FD? You never read his megathread about things he thinks need changing? Comparing Viajero to LA is laughable.

 

[LittleAnt]

This standpoint where apparently the very limited and particular itches that SC can scratch are somehow "better" or "preferred" than those in other games is wholly misguided and a direct consequence of SC abusive marketing and BDSSE misrepresentation.

The specific itches that SC scratch clearly better than other spaces games is giving the sense of beeing a human in a ship.
ED, NMS and Eve have strong features but the second you are in the ship, you ARE the ship. In SC, you are always a human in a ship. This sense of being a human is also greatly enforced by all the small human tasks you can and have to do. You never feel more human than when you have to remove in urge your helmet and drink a bottle of water because you are dying of thirst.

 

[Old Duck]

The specific itches that SC scratch clearly better than other spaces games is giving the sense of beeing a human in a ship.
ED, NMS and Eve have strong features but the second you are in the ship, you ARE the ship.

I said I was bowing out, but I have to take exception to this. The specific itch that Elite Dangerous VR scratches clearly better than other space games is giving the sense of being a human (as in, me physically sitting in a chair and looking around) IN a ship. Nothing, not even Space Engineers, comes close to that immersive experience.

And if you want to limit the list to flatscreen games, both Space Engineers and X4 Foundations do a great job of giving the sense of being a human in a ship. Whether it's as good as SC or not, well, I can't say, but those games "scratch that specific itch" for me. The itch these games don't scratch is exploring entire cities or large stations, which is something that attracted me to Star Citizen in the first place. Make that your sales pitch.

 

[Xink]

Being critical of multiple space games is a sure sign of... a fan of space games. You can't like something and not see things that could be improved.

Is Star Citizen at all moddable

As soon as those modding manuals are printed/electronically shipped. Any day now.

 

[WhiteHaulerMan]

So they've

If that sort of thing appeals to you then take a look at The Long Dark. It's set in the Canadian wilderness, and whilst it can be brutally unforgiving to start with, persevere and it's really quite stunning in it's own way. Albeit the graphics are styalised rather than 'hi-def'.

I love Long Dark, and am interested to see where its going after the final episode of Wintermute, and sink 100 days survival into my long running savegame every long trip I do (up to 1,500 days, soon to be 1,600), also having a First Aid Kit song for the intro song rocked my world.

Source: https://youtu.be/q4_h8GyIWkM


However I will point out it does have loading screens all over the place.

 

[kilvenny]

The specific itches that SC scratch clearly better than other spaces games is giving the sense of beeing a human in a ship.
ED, NMS and Eve have strong features but the second you are in the ship, you ARE the ship. In SC, you are always a human in a ship.

I assume you have never tried VR in ED. Strap on a VR headset inside a ship in ED, rest your hands on the controls of a HOTAS and within seconds the room and its surroundings have disappeared. VR is an insane experience and ED nailed it inside a ship. It feels like you really are there. Once you have experienced that level of immersion it's hard to go back to 2D which sadly is what SC is still despite VR being promised. Sadly FD missed a trick with EDO and chose not to include it in the additional game play.

I know it sounds like an oversell and I never believed it until I tried it myself.

 

[Darkfyre99]

You can't really understand the level of immersion of SC without experiencing it.

Waking up in your ship floating in space, switching the light, sitting up in bed, getting up and feeling the thirst. Take a bottle in your hand, open it, drink it and put it on the edge of the kitchenette.
Walk to the pilot's seat and sit down. Dive to the ground and land between the trees on a snowy planet. Leave your seat, walk to the cargo bay. Press the button on the wall that opens the ramp and see the landscape appear while the door opens. Go down the ramp and find yourself facing an icy wind that pushes you back and prevents you from seeing more than 5m away. The visor of the helmet freezes, I have to clean it with my hand regularly. Glimpse the light of an outpost through the storm, climb the stairs, open the door and find yourself warm and safe. Go to the rover call station and call a ROC. Exit into the icy wind, go to the ROC and open the cockpit, climb in and turn on the engine. To park the ROC in the cargo bay of the ship, I have to do it twice because the cargo bay is narrow. I leave the ROC and close the door of the cargo bay. Go back to the pilot seat. A new day of mining begins...
All this without having opened a single menu, teleporting or having a loading screen. And that's just a small part of the immersive aspect of SC.

Different people have different ideas of what immersion means. For me, immersion is when you stop seeing it as a game, and simply get lost in the experience.

Lots of games accomplish this through worldbuilding and environmental design, game mechanics that have depth, and interfaces that don't get in the way of the experience.

Star Citizen isn't one of them. The worldbuilding repeatedly gets in the way of my experience, especially during my first free fly. The game mechanics barely qualify as tier 0, and many of them are so badly implemented, especially NPC behavior, that engaging with them is like a punch in the face. And many of the interfaces in the game seem to be drawing from the worst ideas from the 1990s.

But at least the game looks pretty... compared to games from around 2010... with less than a tenth of Star Citizen's budget.

 

[Darkfyre99]

People, please stop mentioning other games to the faithful. It can startle them to learn there are other games out there!

Hmm...

Empyrion Galactic Survival
Starbase
Dual Universe
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
Rogue System
No Man's Sky
Children of a Dead Earth
The Last Starship
FTL



edit:
I can't believe I didn't include Kerbal Space Program on the list, though in my defense, I consider KSP in a class unto itself.

 

[thistle]

Waking up in your ship floating in space, switching the light, sitting up in bed, getting up and feeling the thirst. Take a bottle in your hand, open it, drink it and put it on the edge of the kitchenette.

My Name is Chris, the surprising new film by Director Ken Loach. Characteristic searing social commentary and kitchen sink realism set in a dystopian future characterised by interminable train journeys and sudden shocking ramp-induced violence. Surely destined for BAFTA success in 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 the future.

 

[Old Duck]

Hmm...

Empyrion Galactic Survival
Starbase
Dual Universe
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
Rogue System
No Man's Sky
Children of a Dead Earth
The Last Starship
FTL

What, no KSP in that list?

 

[thistle]

Says a moderator of the competitor's forum who also has a clear interest to appeal to the Elite Dangerous community, making your opinion equally suspect IMO. You are the LittleAnt of Elite Dangerous, LOL. Quite the sales pitch you have there! Do you work for Frontier? If not, you should apply for a job in their marketing department. I hear Odyssey could use some help with its Steam reviews.

If you can ad hominem Drew's opinions out of existence due to his supposed biases, then I can do the same with yours.

Smilies can't excuse this post.

 

[Darkfyre99]

What, no KSP in that list?

I will amend the list post-haste

edit:
I was considering games that vaguely resemble Star Citizen in terms of gameplay, especially the shooty bits. KSP may be many things, but it isn't a shooty type game.

 

[WhiteHaulerMan]

I will amend the list post-haste

edit:
I was considering games that vaguely resemble Star Citizen in terms of gameplay, especially the shooty bits. KSP may be many things, but it isn't a shooty type game.

cough
Star Wars: Squadrons
cough cough

 

[Darkfyre99]

This is what eventually killed my interest in NMS. Scarcity is what makes something precious, and there is no scarcity in NMS (at least not of the things I'm interested in). Now if only one in every ten systems had planets with life (that includes these races of aliens and their ships and buildings), and freighters were end-game content rather than given away for free, I might be still playing NMS today.

There's four other things that killed NMS for me.

First and foremost, is the unskippable tutorial. I usually play survival games in Iron Man mode, and having to go through the tutorial again and again before I can really start playing is completely unappealing.

The second is the limited save points. I think that kind of thing is bad enough in an online game, but in a single-player game? This isn't the 80's with limited storage on a game's cartridge. If I have to shut the game down to deal with real life, I expect to be able to pick up where I left off, whether it's offline or on. ( stares accusingly at Star Citizen, a particularly bad offender)

The third is the atrocious flight model.

Finally, there's the Potato Head procedural generation. It was barely tolerable when it came to generating life, but then I started noticing the same patterns repeating in the terrain.

VR could've saved NMS as more casual exploration for me, but even that was implemented badly IMO.

 

[Darkfyre99]

And if you want to limit the list to flatscreen games, both Space Engineers and X4 Foundations do a great job of giving the sense of being a human in a ship. Whether it's as good as SC or not, well, I can't say, but those games "scratch that specific itch" for me. The itch these games don't scratch is exploring entire cities or large stations, which is something that attracted me to Star Citizen in the first place. Make that your sales pitch.

Personally, I think Space Engineers and Empyrion: Galactic Survival both do as good a job at creating the sensation of being a human in a ship, with the added bonus that you can create your own spaceships. Which is something I'm looking forward to once Starfield finally releases, and gets a few patches under its belt. Both games are good, but lacking in the NPC crew department.

Kind of like Star Citizen.

 

[LittleAnt]

My Name is Chris, the surprising new film by Director Ken Loach. Characteristic searing social commentary and kitchen sink realism set in a dystopian future characterised by interminable train journeys and sudden shocking ramp-induced violence. Surely destined for BAFTA success in 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 the future.

You can mock but what I wrote is exactly what I do and experience regularly in game and it's really cool.

 

[thistle]

You can mock but what I wrote is exactly what I do and experience regularly in game and it's a really cool.

Many thanks.

 

[Viajero]

I disagree with your logic.

I hear you, but the matter is not one of logic I am afraid. I just highlighted a factual element that seemed to have been ignored in the present discussion, that of opinion givers having a direct vested economic personal interest in the opinion given.

Now, we might indeed agree or disagree on the degree of that vested interest influencing those opinions. Some are affected more than others, and some do more obviously than others.

In the case at hand regarding DW´s review of SC, given his business, his "gaming", his own personal past statements about SC and his public track record with FDEV, my personal opinion is that among all content creators often discussed in this forum he is probably one of the most clear cut cases of opinions most significantly influenced by vested interest.

I don't "agree" with this glowing "Elite is the bestest thing ever, and Star Citizen is bear poo!!" fanboism, "false" or not.

Please note I never expressed that Elite is the bestest thing ever. I merely highlighted the fact that the common SC fan sentiment about SC´s very limited and particular itches scratched being "better" or "preferred" than those in other games is wholly misguided and a direct consequence of SC abusive marketing and BDSSE misrepresentation. I then proceeded to give examples of how other games scratch many other itches that SC simply can´t or does in a very poorly manner.

 

[PiLhEaD]

...However I will point out it does have loading screens all over the place.

That's a very fair point. I find it irritating but not bothersome. It has its faults, but as a story-led scenic walking simulator and screen-shot generator I think it's really pretty fab.

 

[WhiteHaulerMan]

That's a very fair point. I find it irritating but not bothersome. It has its faults, but as a story-led scenic walking simulator and screen-shot generator I think it's really pretty fab.

Also having both Female and Male Shepards as an estranged couple was a great choice in terms of voice actors. I tend to use it as an interactive screensaver once I've got myself setup for a few days surviving without needing interaction, having a coffee and reading a book with the game as background noise (yep Im weird... I used to play silent hunter 3 on x256 time compression, occasionally looking up.from.my book after setting a patrol route and search plan).

Looking forward to booting it up on Tuesday now for the first time in seven months