Along with all the folks on my contacts list from the baby PU, we've all but given up until 3.0...you can only do so many ICC missions. Occasionally when I log into the PU, there'll be one or two around and we'll organise some random nonsense to keep the new folks amused...mainly though, we sit around and chat and spawn ships for the newbies before heading off to play some E-D or GR Wildlands.
I've noticed the PU has become almost devoid of the longer term backers over the last few months and is mainly populated by newbies trying it out for the first time... lot's of Auroras and Avengers or Mustangs, lots of questions from folks who've only recently jumped on the bandwagon expecting something else bar what's on offer from the PU.
As a whole, SC is bleeding long term backers as players, Star Marine is a failure, racing is boring since there's nothing worthwhile to spend Rec on, Arena commander is as exciting as E-D's CQC.... and it's taken way too long for 3.0. I suspect a lot of them will turn up again once the Jesus patch appears but as a general consensus of those I've asked, not many will be opening their wallets even after 3.0 hits...we're done feeding the beast.
A recent post on Spectrum asking for support for CiG and CR after the recent displays of irritation was met by a largely upvoted post which plainly said...
'CR doesn't want our support, he just wants more money. Since we've already spent what we're going to spend, we're almost irrelevant to CR and CiG... in the same way window shoppers are to high street retailers'.
One thing that some people seem to forget is that alphas are incomplete and buggy, but Alpha does not mean bad. I've played other alphas that have been an absolute joy, limited but already feeling and sounding really good. By contrast, SC alpha 0.8 ranks as one of the top 3 worst gaming experiences I have ever had, although it has vastly improved since then, to mediocre. I played the ED alphas and betas for a good couple of hundred hours, but have only spent about 2 hours with the SC alphas in the last 3 years
I wonder how you would rate SC if the release had the same flight mechanics and audio, but with other gameplay added.
I didnt spring for the Alphas but I did for the Betas. The ED Alphas and Betas came at reasonably regular intervals and each alpha was released to test a specific major "sub-function":
Start of Kickstarter Campaign
6th November 2012
End of Kickstarter Campaign
5th January 2013
Alpha 1.0 - Combat and Flight
12th December 2013
Alpha 2.0 - Multiplayer
5th Feb 2014
Alpha 3.0 - Docking and Ship Outfitting
19th March 2014
Alpha 4.0 - Trading and Travel
15th May 2014
Premium Beta
30th May 2014
Standard Beta 1
29th July 2014
Standard Beta 2
30th September 2014
Standard Beta 3
28th October 2014
Standard Beta 3.9
20th November 2014
Elite Dangerous Launch
16th December 2014
The layered approach and not everything available at launch helped achieve that and in my opinion gave a sense of progress. SC promised the moon on a stick at launch and whilst progress may be being made it seems to be taking an age and for me there are still some major fundamentals missing. Who knows what peoples opinions would be if they reigned things in a little, it has the potential to be good, but at the moment that potential is unrealised.
I havent been back in to SC much (if at all) since 2.4 was released as I am still waiting for a major advancement in what is on offer .... Hopefully 3.0 will bring some new things to play with.
Meh - I've tried it and got absolutely nowhere. Nobody is missing anything much anyway. My Star Citizen sessions inevitably end up with something like this:
Total number of logical processors: 12
Number of available logical processors: 12
Total number of system cores: 6
Number of cores available to process: 6
But perhaps most relevant of all:
Code:
[CSessionManager::RequestFrontEnd] Started - RequestFrontEndReason="ProcessBootRequest"!
[disconnectlight] Game does not exist!
Meh - I've tried it and got absolutely nowhere. Nobody is missing anything much anyway. My Star Citizen sessions inevitably end up with something like this:
Total number of logical processors: 12
Number of available logical processors: 12
Total number of system cores: 6
Number of cores available to process: 6
But perhaps most relevant of all:
Code:
[CSessionManager::RequestFrontEnd] Started - RequestFrontEndReason="ProcessBootRequest"!
[disconnectlight] Game does not exist!
Yeah, this is major crux with crewing. To make crewing interesting you have to have gameplay...which might not be accessible or being separate from someone with no crew on ship. It is complex balance...
It's called a "genre". You designed a game with a specific genre like "multi-crew space ship simulation" and might get a fun game out of it. Or you try to sell the "Jack of all trades" video game and fail at all fronts instead.
I'm just bitterly disappointed that my laptop cannot run Star citizen anymore due to having integrated graphics. Peeved off to say the least because I was one of the original pledgers paying 250USD and back then the game although early alpha worked on my laptop. I'm so glad ED works.
It's what happens when you pledge for a game promised for your platform and get a product for another platform a decade later. It's the same when someone takes your money promising you a "PlayStation" game in 2012 (setting expectations for a PS3 game) and then gives you a PS4 Pro release almost a decade later. PC is no special snowflake and no different from that.
That's why you hand over the money after the game is finished (and you have the preconditions ready).
It's called a "genre". You designed a game with a specific genre like "multi-crew space ship simulation" and might get a fun game out of it. Or you try to sell the "Jack of all trades" video game and fail at all fronts instead.
It's what happens when you pledge for a game promised for your platform and get a product for another platform a decade later. It's the same when someone takes your money promising you a "PlayStation" game in 2012 (setting expectations for a PS3 game) and then gives you a PS4 Pro release almost a decade later. PC is no special snowflake and no different from that.
That's why you hand over the money after the game is finished (and you have the preconditions ready).
Meh - I've tried it and got absolutely nowhere. Nobody is missing anything much anyway. My Star Citizen sessions inevitably end up with something like this:
Total number of logical processors: 12
Number of available logical processors: 12
Total number of system cores: 6
Number of cores available to process: 6
But perhaps most relevant of all:
Code:
[CSessionManager::RequestFrontEnd] Started - RequestFrontEndReason="ProcessBootRequest"!
[disconnectlight] Game does not exist!
I was not referring to CIG explanations but yours actually. You seem to have wasted a lot of argumentation effort trying to argue something not many here were really arguing much about (VR game vs VR supported). And in doing so you seem to have avoided the CIG VR contradictions and the discussion about the more than likely upcoming broken promises on that front.
This discussion has been discussed to death by now and this is my stance alone, my opinion and we can leave it like that. Supporting VR is not the same as making a VR Game. When making a VR Game you would compromise on design decisions to accommodate VR play all time at all costs. Star Citizen is being developed as mmorpg to be played in first-person-view that allows you to use vehicles. Anyone who play's VR knows that it strives in the "in vehicle" part of most games. Since Star Citizen has heavy focus on cockpit I have no doubt that it will support VR, how and when it's for CIG to decide.
It's a new and fast evolving tech with a lot of room to grow, but at this time with would be foolish to make it a priority as it's community represent's only a tiny fraction of the gamers. As the tech grows and becomes more and more mature and affordable it's sure that Star Citizen with it's high fidelity and detailed assets will make use from it.
Thats the thing, "the plan changed because they got more money" is the most stupid thing they could have done. IF there ever was a plan then why not stick to it? But keep increases in mind for the future because you got more money on your way? So you can expand your game from the planned out kickstarter goals to something bigger later on because you have the money for it. But atleast you would have something to work with that you planned out before hand.
They could have created SC and its "limited" scope without problems it was still realistic at that time. They could have their citys and limited landing zones ect and people could have played it with a working gaming loop several system ect.
After release they could have worked internally towards procedual generation of planet surfaces all while they have a game released in the background that pumps in money.
Then when they have their procedual generation tech done, they could use that to generate planetsurfeace and import their already created citys/landingzones on those planets.
They could have gradually increase the scope of SC with a released product. But no they throwed every 3 Months their current plans away to add more features lossing sight of what they wanted to achieve started creating digital sales on a scope never seen before that beggers believe to rack in more money. Arena Commander was intended as a testbed to get the flight controlls right and for players to play around with, ended up as a marketing tool to fish out more money out of people because in order to test anything in that testbed you have to BUY the ship for real money, only after months they added in a way to get some ships through playing the game.
CIG presented their pitch, people liked what they saw and gave them way more money than predicted so they scaled their game accordingly with the backers funding. The absolutely righteous thing to do and best decision on the long run for the game imo. For me the fact that they have grown from a 6 people with nothing but a pitch video and a dream into a multi-million dollar company with studios across the globe and 430~ employers, some of them being industry leads in their fields is a testament to how good of a decision that was-
If they have gotten the money that allows them to build a Skyscraper from the get go they shouldn't waste time building a house first that then will end up demolished because it's foundations cant fully support the needs of a Skyscraper.
You can't expect Star Citizen to be developed like Elite Dangerous for example, as they are completely different projects with completely different funding model's, constraints and above all design choices and experiences to the player. The way I see it Star Citizen Universe is being made from the inside (micro) and expanding (macro) because it choose to focus firstly on the "player" while Elite is being built from the Outside (macro) to inside (refining and filling it) because it choose to focus first on the Universe and adding stuff to it later. Both decisions come with pro's and con's but were the way the companies felt the better way to developed their game.
You're joking right? Because that is one awful attempt at deflection. What percentage of $100 million do you honestly think t-shirts, mousepads and caps account for?
Is it really? I've spent more or less the same on merchandise as in ship's and know plenty of other's that did the same, as for the exact percentage generated by those sales only CIG's know's.
Actually, all of what CR and CiG proposed for SC has been done before, and is being done now. Elite: Dangerous, No Man's Sky, and EVE Online are all doing what Star Citizen proposed. Before those, we had games like a Ultima Online, Shadowbane, and a few other late 90's, early 2000 niche MMOs whose names elude me right now.
Despite being set in Space all those games are so further apart I can't see the point in the comparison.
Star Citizen design core is having the player playing as character playing in a seamless living breathing universe, focusing on quests and story's to make the player the central part of the game, that player can use vehicles as ship's etc, but it's always a person inside a ship.
SC already offers game features like walking, eva, fpshooting, multicrew, seamless transitions from space station to space-ship in a very unique way that neither ED, NMS or EVE will provide because they are not designed to be like that from the ground up like SC is.
Same way has Star Citizen will probably never have the huge scientifically accurate galaxy of ED or allow players to enjoy the universe alone, the colorful worlds and ship building of NMS, or have the massive Org Battles and player controlled Economy like EvE for example.
Again, I feel it's really like comparing apples and oranges. In the future they might get similar "features" but they will always implemented in a way that makes sense for each game's design core and audience.
Point is, Chris and CIG has never been qualified to "push bountaries". There are other devs - FD, guys who do Maia, Limit Theory - who actually walk the walk. Designing graphics assets isn't a game, there's no even prototype what would work to talk about. As many have pointed out you can't claim being superior without delivering product first. It does not work like that.
Well both Chris Roberts and lot of other talented dev's at CIG have already done that in the last decades they have been involved in some of the most groundbreaking and popular games the industry as seen, multiple times actually.
Just a week ago GDC featured this video about "Legends of Game Design" on their youtube channel:
So CiG after years of development and using multiple companies around the globe has managed to invent MIRRORS and MONITORS into a computer game? Thats really awesome, I was astonished at the creativity of these people.
Seriously tho, I probably just dont recognize the potential of this new feature and I have problems following the verbal description or at least fail to see implementations that would justify diverting resources and attention to this tech. Can anybody help me out? A little later I spotted an ingame video drone capturing footage of an ingame NPC and transmitting that on a bigger screen. I found that indeed impressive but again....until its integrated in the PU we could as well drop the topic . The original question remains tho.....why.
StarCitizen PiP(Picture in Picture) is groundbreaking tech because it was one of the known limitations of the old "CryEngine" and that it's being developed so that it's usable also in mmorpg setting, which is more complex than in a single-player setting.
The applications are many, from allowing to render player characters in real time on ship MFD's for comunication (in a mmorpg every character is different so this allows for non-prebaked animation solutions).
Or used in the holographic display's on the decks of big ship's or briefing room's for player interaction.
They have a ship [Reliant Mako] dedicated to broadcasting occurrence's in the universe and with this tech they might be able to do some cool stuff like broadcasting racing events or give live new's of ongoing skirmishes in the verse.
There's also the interesting possibility of sending player manned drones into planets or hazardous places to scout stuff.
I'm sorry, they aren't entirely inept, they are reall really good at selling dreams and jpegs and they can stay afloat and "in business" for as long as people keep throwing money at them for non-game-non-assets.
...and how many of these studios sold tons and tons of game content years and years (and years) before the game was so much as in beta let alone launched?
Oh you can't possibly be serious. You think they would have still being afloat if all they did was sell concept ship's and do ATV show's?
They keep releasing updates and showcasing core tech in their playable build's, just so it happens people seem to like it and feel enticed to pledge more besides the "basic" package...
Well since Star Citizen is being developed as a mmorpg, which is a massive undertaking in both time and money, and has decided to not go with the subscription model route it's only fair that it needs to fund it's development through ship sales, like it has done ever since. It's not news and it's a well thought business model that works for CIG and other studios developing mmorpg's...
Check the business model of Studios developing Crowfall, Camelot Unchained, Pantheon etc
Rest of the points you made already got debated to exhaustion, you may not like CIG business model or their development choices but the thing is that it's working for them and many backers keep supporting them and it's not worth getting angry or fussed about it because it won't change a thing.
They might even be the same people for all we know. There are no game "community's" without complainers, there's always something "wrong" or that should be improved. In the end companies and dev's want the best for their games and communities and work within their possibilities to address as much "concerns" as possible, but it's impossible to please everyone.
Hi. Sorry, i can't find those vids you posted. I did a search through your post history, but it shows a summary of the post, so its easy to not see. Can you point me to the right post or repost please?
Hi John , Only a tiny portion of the backers are actually playing the game... Last time I checked, leaderboards only had about 20,000 people. Out of a few hundred thousand / 1.6 million backers depending on who you believe.
One thing that some people seem to forget is that alphas are incomplete and buggy, but Alpha does not mean bad. I've played other alphas that have been an absolute joy, limited but already feeling and sounding really good.
Hey Wookie, only a tiny portion of gamers actually enjoy testing and reporting bugs, that's what a real alpha is for. 2.6 as been out long enough for most of the gameplay available has been thoroughly tested by the interested backers. I don't think Star Citizen alpha is bad, it's what an alpha is supposed to be and I've had a ton of joyful moments play-testing it, both alone and with friends.
Also I wouldn't compare Star Citizen alpha stage to the traditional one's advertised by normal publishers. When you play an alpha the game foundations are probably 90% set in stone, feature complete and mechanics ironed out and polished, and dev's are looking to test optimization.
The reality is that games in development are not very "pretty" for greater part of their production:
You can attest that not only in Star Citizen but in many other crowdfunding games (don't mistake for early access games) in the making that I've mentioned before, Crowfall, Kingdome Come, etc
But not many playing space games so there's some hope for Star Citizen to capitalize on that. If Star Citizen will ever go on Steam that's for anyone's guess.
A interesting 3.0 dark side of the Moon shared by Sandi Gardener.
Is this technology existing in Star Citizen today? ATV is at best a propaganda machine and whatever you see in there is not a guarantee nor a promise that it ll ever come to the actual game. Also "groundbreaking" is simply undeserved in the context you describe because CiG never mentioned the link to the engine alone. But of course if your thinking is correct that would explain why CiG uses all these fluff words to describe mundane and average things at best. Because these are all things already realized in other games and known to the world but new on the CryEngine....okay, thats not how it works
Your whole post reads like a propaganda post to be honest. You cram theoretical, nonexistant screenshots and video snippets (or are these from the PU?) in at every opportunity. Your mistake is that you try to credit CiG or participate in a discussion about facts with "nothing". ATV material is no proof to contents existance. Its at best a new debt by CiG to the community and the actual release will determine if their promises and announcement held any water. What you are doing is claiming that walking on water is a reality because the bible said so.
I think that going live is pretty much the endpoint for CiG/Star Citizen and they know it. Because obviously there is nothing else then the PU, since the last big patch theres been a long time of promises, announcement, praises to new "break-throughs" and also statements of some of these new things to be dropped before they ever hit the PU so we are trying to watch through a 3cm thick curtain and have no chance to evaluate any of these announced things. Their current patch is massively delayed, rumored to not come 2017 at all, has dropped a lot of features and can be at best considered a 3.0 "lite" version compared to its first announcement. And STILL even with a reduced load of content they struggle and fail to show any of it life or get it out the door. If the current PU is an indicator for any future patches then the game is indeed dead. Its possible to have "fun" in it if you are heavily drunk or have the right "mindset" but I supposes most gamers on the planet want substance and quality in their hand when they purchase a product, not dreams.
I think going on steam would be the worst possible thing CiG can do. Because it takes control out of their hands. Suddenly they cannot hide behind bought and biased interviews anymore. And while I m sure that the SC whales will at first upvote a steam SC to heaven every newcomer attracted by these reviews will realize hes been fooled and soon steam SC will takes its place as an eternal early access game which has a positive review ratio of 30-40% with flame wars playing out before the worlds eyes. Not the best advertisement scenario hehe. I would put my game on steam if I could be sure that quality is sufficiant to justify a pricetag of 35 dollars (and it needs to be at least 35$ else they break yet another promise to their original backers). As it stands they have nothing to gain and a lot to lose if they go on steam.
Also "groundbreaking" is simply undeserved in the context you describe because CiG never mentioned the link to the engine alone. But of course if your thinking is correct that would explain why CiG uses all these fluff words to describe mundane and average things at best. Because these are all things already realized in other games and known to the world but new on the CryEngine....okay, thats not how it works
Is it really? I've spent more or less the same on merchandise as in ship's and know plenty of other's that did the same, as for the exact percentage generated by those sales only CIG's know's.
Yes. Of course it is. Just because yourself and a few others have done so is no proof whatsoever that the majority have done so. For just 1% of the gross it would require 10% of all backers to buy a hat, a mousemat or a t-shirt. The majority never care enough to start spending that sort of money on top of the base price.
