Ow.
Star Citizen Discussions v7
- Thread starter Brett C
- Start date
Ow.
I know, I've seen the 2016 presentation. Here are the slides: https://imgur.com/gallery/MV2PM
Well, it was again overly optimistic, but its 2017 and 3.0 is in Evocati, its not such a dramatic lie as you make it out to be. CR obviously wants more and more stuff added in at the last moments, as we know from various news, and that slows down the process quite a bit, adds new bugs, but at least we get there.
Right now it is DLC. At some undetermined point in the future it will be like content in a F2P game.
It wasn't ok when EA said "Pay for these gems and you can skip days of mining in DK2" and it's no different with CIG, pay now and you can skip months worth of grinding in SC. Since when has that sort of thinking become acceptable?
Where ?
Where it was last year?
Or the year before?
Or the year before?
Or the year before?
But what Avocados are testing now has almost nothing in common with the 3.0 that is announced on theses slides! The only commonality is the number 3.0. There are no professions, there is only a tiny fraction of the stanton system. These are not some minor things but major parts of 'a game'. So it is exactly the opposite of what you claim. 3.0 did not get delayed because MORE was added. It got delayed by at least a year DESPITE the fact that MOST core features were removed!
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No - it isn't. But they've spent most of that money and with over 450 employees, the in come from crowdfunding cannot be enough to support them. Even if we say there are only 300 devs and the rest are support staff, and even if we say each dev sucks up the budget estimate of about $10k per month, CIG are still spending about $3 million a month. That's about $0.5-1 million more than their usual take. Even if they don't lose any more backers, they are still losing about $10 million a year.
And that is the LOW estimate.
Add that to the LOW estimate of their current spend to date - about $110 million - and they only have about 4 years worth of reserves. Less any money they need to set aside for publication, marketing, and hosting. Less any refunds.
Even allowing for a generous overshoot in CIGs favour on these estimates, CIG is now in a race against time. They cannot hold off reality forever. They do not have enough money to provide the game they promised. They do not have enough money to continue funding development for the timeframe needed. Not without drastic cuts somewhere.
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Your choices are:
a) he was right.
b) he was lying.
c) he doesn't understand game development.
Seriously can you stop this nonsense about people here displaying 'unjust criticism and general rudeness (!) towards hard-working and ambitious people'. It's obvious to most people that many of the programmers, designers and other staff they've hired are extremely talented, people are not ragging on the individuals who are responsible for the creative work being done. They are ragging on the breathtakingly incompetent and generally shambolic leadership which is ensuring that those talented people are hamstrung.
The funniest thing of all really is that if you want to direct your anger at someone who is really ragging on the creatives, you'd do well to start with Roberts himself, who has never stepped back from throwing a dev under the bus to explain away his own failings.
If you want to find just one example of that (which of course you'll already be aware of since you've been following events so closely) track down someone from Illfonic and ask them what they think about him. That's Illfonic whose company actually took serious financial damage from being unexpectedly taken off the roster after spending over a year working on content for SC, mainly because CIG were unable to communicate their needs effectively enough for Illfonic to deliver content that was scaled correctly to be used in the game.
Just think about that for a minute. We're talking about something that even if it was somehow allowed to happen to begin with (which is already a pretty major management fail since we're talking about absolutely basic design specs here) should have been picked up at literally the first review of the project. Instead it ran on for months because the oversight was so utterly lacking that nobody picked it up.
Roberts presented that as being essentially Illfonic's fault and pulled the rug from under them. The only way that it would actually be Illfonic's fault would be if you believe that if you tell a fitted kitchen designer to design you a layout for your 20' by 10' kitchen, you're then perfectly entitled to kick off at them when they turn up to install it and nothing fits because your kitchen is actually 18' by 12'.
Everybody knows that the devs work hard there and they've hired some extremely talented people. It's the clown who is running the circus that people have an issue with, not the guys selling the hotdogs. It's absolutely infuriating reading comments like the one you made above because it's part of a narrative intended to portray people who are leveling valid criticism as being evil , unpleasant souls who are just looking for excuses to dump on the poor blameless workers. Frankly, it's complete and utter crap mate.
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Most of that looks pretty nice, and looked to run quite smooth (no major tech issues), still it was basically a 'demo' so not sure how representative it actually is on the state of the 'game'? And god knows what my kickstarter tier will actually be when i do eventually (i will right?) get access to it? Fingers crossed and all that
That's the big question isn't it?
Yes - the demo looks nice. But it is just a demo and one that isn't built on the game as it is. How much of that "looks nice" will be in the final game?
Being blunt - again - all they've done is show that they have (at best) a city editor similar to those that have been around for years. We'll know if they have the technology working as promised and whether they have reached their goals once they create an actual game.
That 2017 demo we saw? It's a proof of concept as well.
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"Illfonic to deliver content that was scaled correctly to be used in the game."
Yes, I remember that, a sad mistake, but they learned from that and started to rely less on outside companies, and make more inside, to avoid this from happening as much as possible, although in 4 studios I'm sure it still happens sometimes. There was a good kotaku article about this issue a few months back, but I don't have it saved.
Mistakes were made, promises were broken, but at least things are going forward. How can I possibly defend as a single guy everything they did or didn't make? I'm just a normal fan, hoping for the best, and not seeing enough reason why you would be so disappointed and angry about all this.
Its obvious that they promised more than they can eventually deliver, since programming and art are so hard and time consuming, but even if they cut back on what they promised, and add things that are possible to add, and actually manage to bring a playable game to us its still a good sign.
Yes, I remember that, a sad mistake, but they learned from that and started to rely less on outside companies, and make more inside, to avoid this from happening as much as possible, although in 4 studios I'm sure it still happens sometimes. There was a good kotaku article about this issue a few months back, but I don't have it saved.
Mistakes were made, promises were broken, but at least things are going forward. How can I possibly defend as a single guy everything they did or didn't make? I'm just a normal fan, hoping for the best, and not seeing enough reason why you would be so disappointed and angry about all this.
Its obvious that they promised more than they can eventually deliver, since programming and art are so hard and time consuming, but even if they cut back on what they promised, and add things that are possible to add, and actually manage to bring a playable game to us its still a good sign.
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In 2014 it was sold as something coming really soon in the game, not as concept.
It took them three years to show prototype.
It will take them three years to get this into actual game.
Time scales are just problem here.
No, he said all that stuff was already in the game. It was done. He had seen it with his own eyes. It will come in weeks. How is 'It is done, I have seen it and it will come in weeks." not a lie when the truth is "they hadnt done it at all, he hadnt seen it and it would take at least as year to do it." And why do you think it is okay to lie in the first place, and continue lying throughout 2017, when part of the pitch was the Open Development, full honesty, we all get to see what was happening etc etc? Why do you defend this immoral behavior and attack people who point it out?
No - you understand it.
Growing a company doesn't mean development stops. It doesn't even slow down. The people doing dev work should nor really be involved in hiring and firing.
The most that happens is that a newstart - even an experienced newstart - might take a few weeks to get up to speed on any unusual system that is being used. Given that - at the time - that was CryEngine, this would not really account for a four year delay.
As you say, developers are intelligent people. They know how to do their job.
I agree with that. But this would require to focus on core gameplay systems like trading and bounty hunting and not fancy demos of city planets or sandworms.
I would be much more optimistic of they would talk about these core features and their implementation to the PU. I don't see or hear them talking about this. I see tech demos of stuff that is many years away at best.
When did you became an optimist?!? (I highly doubt we will see the city planet in the PU in three years.)
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Wheyhey, so we're all cool then and can agree on some things after all.
[edit: I'm all for spreading peace and love ]
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Ubisoft show Beyond Good And Evil 2 and have said it won't be out until 2020 at the earliest.
Disagree strongly. Its not the message of the post (negativity) that gets upvoted but the quality of it regarding comedy, expression, connection and facts. I dont upvote posts simply for being negative toward Star Citizen. But there are so many good points being made against the case which also provide a different points of view I havent thought of before while bringing snippets of information to the table I didnt find yet which warrant an upvote. And I have granted a lot of upvotes to people I dont agree with in the past somply because I was unable to deny the truths in their posts. Some posts are meant as "dry humor" and are simply so sarcastic (without being offensive) that I sometimes have a "lol" moment. This is a quality that also only people possess who are not overly invested in the project who dont take any criticism of the game as a personal offense.
I have no problem with swearing most of the time, I m an adult who uses strong expressions in a lot of situations and the restrictions on the FD forum have been annoying at first until I adapted. But being forced to stay polite, not being able to tap into hate-mongering or posting pure filth (even when meant funny) has made this my favorite place to hang out in regarding Star Citizen.
So "negativity" has to be presented in a roughly neutral voice, you cannot rely on a few redacted terms to describe your feelings or the projects condition precisely. Instead you have to come up with a string of words which are not offensive yet are able to transport your opinion. Not an easy task as I find. And some people leave me with my mouth wide open at the quality of their posts. Better still...negativity on this forum is NOT accepted for the sake of negativity as some short-sighted people claim. This is nothing like the Derek subreddit where the wildest, most absurd and pure hatred instilled accusations are made and people are celebrated for their ingenuity when it comes to swear words. That is a pure hate place and comparing the FD offtopic thread with that place leaves me in shock asking myself if the person making that claim is either uninformed, malicious or just conditioned and unable to retain a personal view of neutrality.
In this thread posts accusing CiG of wrongdoing or accusing Roberts of certain things are challenged and questioned. You cannot simply come up with fantasy or fiction and expect others to believe you for your word. People want sources, people want facts and if you cannot provide those you need to come up with a good explanationj of your conclusions. One-liners wont do the trick. Sarcasm is often funny but also often unhelpful to make others understand your side of the argument. If in its 7th iteration this thread stands out as "negative" as so many babyfaces arriving lately conclude then its the census of thousands of pages of discussions and arguments. Opinions here are not suppressed. You can voice your love for the game and how fantastic everything is BUT you need to be prepared for some hard questions at the same time. Simple stuff that every news site covering gaming should ask CRoberts in a clear and direct way IMO yet most if not all of them refuse to do their job. And if you are surprised and confused that appearant misconceptions (in your eyes) go by unchallenged or are being taken for granted then you can be sure that this topic has been discussed heavily in the past before and people here remember the result so nobody goes into the same old cycle leading to the same result again because its unneeded. You are at a disadvantage because you havent been around? Stay polite and ask questions if you cannot be bothered to read up on history or if you dont want to believe the replies you get pull up your sleeves and dig in (its what I did so I have zero understanding for people unwilling to do the same)
Its not "hate" if a string of clear questions lead to a one-sided conclusion. If you are able to keep distraction and going off-topic out (which are curiously the preferred tools of SC-defenders) of the discussion the ultimate conclusion is really bad-looking. Especially if you take other companies into the picture and how they manage to produce games in smaller timeframes, on less funding being more open and coming up with solid and groundbreaking gameplay that SC in its 6th year of development and after burning through 160+ million dollars doesnt possess even in rudimentary form. The only actual "ground-breaking" thing about Star Citizen are its ever withdrawing visions of the end result far far in the future. Yet whatever they are able to produce doesnt instill confidence when it comes to the realization of said visions.
Participants in this forum are by now "hardened" and "experienced" enough to see through obvious smoke and mirror and fantasy claims. Thats why I pointed out that so many freshlings arrive on this forum and accuse the old-timers here of hate, not understanding the term nor what is happening on this forum but are unwilling to put in some effort or time in order to participate or make their own opinion being heard. Many here have been around for 6 years already. If they say anything you better listen up because chances are they are able to back up their opinion with actual experience and facts when it comes to Star Citizen. Again, this isnt simply words. Many counter-claim they ve been backing the game since 2014 or earlier but the CONTENT of their posts only really out them as the newbies they are when it comes to SC info.
I am willing to listen to positive comments regarding Star Citizen. If there are any. Using nice words is a way of being polite. Personally I think if a pig stinks and behaves like a pig it deserves to be called one but thats me. We do admit certain qualities when it comes to SC. The problem is that all of these qualities are really not important nor that outrageous when it comes to development. Nice looks mean NOTHING when core gameplay is missing or claimed and projected content doesnt have a solid foundation to be built on. Star Citizen consistently shows a massive lack of quality or foundation which require an ever-growing "leap of faith" in order to believe official claims like "thousands of players" or any of the recent videos showing "cool stuff".
The question in here is not if "people want or dont want these things in a computer game". The question simply is if CiG is capable to deliver on any of those claims and promises (Its rather promises because they do cash in fantastic amounts of money based on these claims to become reality someday). Many people do have personal experience in project management or game development and their opinion outweighs my own when it comes to specific topics simply because of the rift of knowledge between us. Once again. I dont believe somebody because he posts "I ve been a software developer for the last 20 years". Rather the quality and content of this persons post provides all the credentials I need. Most here dont even mention their qualifications but are willing to share that piece of information once they are challenged (which always happens with the sheeples who demand and immediately disregard that information). By then the message of their posts has not changed nor has their views. Consistency across many different views also is important. One person claiming something isnt enough to convince me. I either need to check up on the info myself or enough different and unconnected people need to confirm said claims to make it believable.
My preferred method of discussion is reading a post then evaluating it based on its tone and "how it sounds" to me (seems likely, I can confirm that, dont know, sounds a bit far-stretched, its a hate-post, its ranting etc). If it goes against my own view or beliefs I will check up on the points made or ask further questions asking for clarification. The quality of the replies will determine if I re-examine my own view on the subject trying to figure out if it can stand against these new informations or if I need to change or adapt my own view. Sometimes I m unable to come to an agreement but are able to stay polite and on neutral terms with said person. The discussion doesnt need to become heated or hostile and de-escalation is indeed performed heavily in this thread when people "trigger" other peoples sore points by accident.
This place is not really asking for much you know. You dont need to be 20.000 dollars or more deep into Star Citizen to have some weight around here. You dont need to be inventive and funny when it comes to words used in this place. All you need is a polite behavior, staying respectful of others rights and knowing your facts. Questions about "facts" or insights you provide are not a personal challenge to you. Be prepared to explain your views further or provide source material that enables others to follow your reasoning. This place does not operate with bully tactics where being the loudest will grant you a place nor does repeating yourself with the same stuff help to bring across your points. Interaction with other human beings can be frustrating and tiresome I know. But its necessary if you want to have a nice place to come to. Otherwise you are left with a wild battlefield which makes everybody nervous and on edge and aggression runs high because you feel threatened and insecure at any moment.
If you think that Star Citizen is fun and full of content already then it should be easy to provide detailed source material backing up your claims. You shouldnt act surprised or hostile if some people actually ask for these things. Being able to distinguish between "facts" and "personal opinion" is a must here but many first learn that difference once they start to post here or so it seems. People questioning you are willing to explain their own views on the matter and will either provide conclusive explanations or facts that back up THEIR claims. Its a back and forth and how well you are prepared as well as how verifiable your points are will determine if you are being heard or believed. If you are in the end unable to transport your view or believes in a satisfactory manner then you should simply accept that and act offended for your own shortcomings. If ALL you can bring to the table is "but I think...." or "I find it fun to play" please dont expect others to take your side or cange their own views based on your word. This isnt happening here in any capacity. People want evidence and they want conclusiveness.
If this thread is at first perceived as "negative" its because the actual verifiable information outweighs fantastic unverifiable claims massively and by now in its 6th year CiG itself provides a good string of evidence that heavily favor the "nay-sayers". It "should" be rather easy to distinguish between futuristic projections and actual game content by now. After all everybody has access to the PTU (if you are not invested just wait for a free-fly weekend) which is the last word when it comes to CURRENT game status and quality. Everything else is theoretical until proven. And the proof is arriving on the PTU. Thats all really. Yet this is a concept that many many people seem to be unable to grasp. And its something that borders on delusion because I m pretty sure these very people behave and operate drastically different in real life. If you are getting paid for your work you WILL check your account to verify if you actually got paid. And if the money you are entitled to is missing you will follow up on this issue until it is resolved. If your employer laughs you off or simply tells you "its there" and dismisses any of your points you will go home and the money will STILL be missing. Third parties you try to pay for their services to you will not accept an explanation like "its okay, my employer told me I have been paid so the money is there, believe me". They demand HARD CURRENCY NOW which you dont have because your account is empty.
So what do you do? You keep asking questions, keep checking every day and if after a certain amount of time your money has not arrived you will take more drastic steps probably leading to court.
That is Star Citizen in a nutshell. The promises and reassurances given by the management sound stale and broken by now because the past view years have been a string ans repetition of failures, disappointments and no-shows. Its so bad by now that nobody really believes CRoberts anymore when he announces a new date simply because he broke any previously given date before (its an actual meme by now). After 5 full years of constant development the actual content that arrives on the PTU is incredibly subpar and bug-ridden. "Its an alpha" doesnt really sound true anymore when the major focus of the project lies on "polishing" and "fidelity" tho as Eagleboy described a couple pages ago it might be that CRoberts has a vastly different understanding of well established industry terms, best showcased in his talk about physics. Also some of the addressed issues have remain unchanged for years now and current development course points to anything BUT fixing these problems treating theses rather critical issues like unimportant stuff. This has lead many people who are a bit longer into this whole mess to outright disregard anything CiG or CRoberts announces and wait for actual evidence which would prove those claims.
Thats what all the ATVs and shows and videos are really. Boasts and claims of future achievements which are non-existing at this point. Taking these things for facts like so many seem to do is a mistake and also unable to hold up under questioning because of lack of evidence. And if people act disgruntled or outright disappointed by actual content releases its because the physical evidence doesnt match the previously given promises. If you say that "Star Marine is a good first attempt" it only demonstrates that you were not around when CRoberts described how Star Marine is going to be years before. Star Marine even more then 1 year after its initial release is NOWHERE NEAR the descriptions given by CRoberts on which he raked in yet more millions. Whole mechanics are missing, the current version is basic and rudimentary at best and doesnt do anything "groundbreaking" as previously announced.
Things like this example repeating themselves often enough will lead to a rather disbelieving attitude when it comes to SC hype. Thats not "hate". Its simply "waiting until whatever was promised actually arrives" before wallets are opened and praise is granted. Its okay to stay optimistic and retain a positive outlook on all this but pleeeeeeaaaaaase stay realistic and away from the mudslinging.
If you think that this place is "locked" in attitude and doesnt change its view on the topic its because Star Citizens development speed is glacial at best and the thing you will do the most is waiting for anything to be achieved while new promises and theoretical claims are being made on a weekly base. If you are able to remain realistic and distinguish between fact and vision you also will recognize that this is a self-destructive behavior pattern on behalf of CiG because theoretical and actual progress run at different speeds only ever increasing CiGs delivery debt. Bar a miracle this is a race that will end up in tears and failure by logic alone.
We all are waiting on said miracle really......
Sorry. Virtual [up]