I would say that the current state of SC is what we had as Alpha 3 or 4 in ED. So, yes - early stage.
The limit was already slightly increased to 170k UEC.
The Star Citizen Thread v 4
- Thread starter Yaffle
- Start date
- Status
I would say that the current state of SC is what we had as Alpha 3 or 4 in ED. So, yes - early stage.
The limit was already slightly increased to 170k UEC.
Didn't know that, thx 4 the info!
Let's compare:
Elite Dangerous
November 6, 2012 - Project launched (Official Kickstarter end date)
March 19, 2014 - Alpha 3 released
Total: 498 Days
Star Citizen
October 18, 2012 - Project launched (Official Kickstarter date)
December 11, 2015 - Alpha 2.0 released
Total: 1149 days
That is more than double, no speculation, simple facts. Early development? Not that early, just inefficient. Wrong architectural decisions, scope creep, wrong technologies, bad project management, it's all taking it's toll. However I can concede you one point, that ain't an Alpha, it's more of a tech demo.
Despite the dates you provided there is a major difference between ED and SC. ED was developed basing on FD proprietary Cobra engine, which means that the developer team knew all the insights, capabilities of the engine, they already had a team that started working on ED. Whereas, SC has acquired CryEngine, which they had to significantly modify for their purposes, also they had to hire people to work on it.
Last edited:
Yep, as I said, wrong architectural decisions. Going with CryEngine was never the right choice and they are paying the price now.
The first episode is SQ42. Behind the Enemy lines should be the second episode, and it is going to be free to all backers who joined before $6M stretch goal was reached.
Well, if SQ42/SC are going to be successful, this is not going to matter.
Of course, I'm looking forward to any SQ42 footage, hope it comes soon.
Cobra was also being built upon and stretched way beyond it's initial capabilities. FD also had to hire people.
CIG had practically an endless cash reserve to work with also hired people who actually worked on building CryEngine and has noone to answer to which means they can miss as many deadlines as they wish... or if things really don't go well take it from "two weeks" to "somewhere, over the rainbow".
There is a very clear difference in management efficiency between the two companies.
Sure. But one thing is when you have the core team already ready to start working on it, and it is totally different when you need to start building team from several employees to the number of employees they have now.
And yes, both engines had to be modified, however, still FD's knowledge of Cobra was still much deeper than CIG's knowledge of CryEngine.
So they need 300+ employees to make the game?
This is my problem with this argument, when did CIG have enough employees to make the game so that people can stop using the "but they had to hire people" as an excuse 5 years after the company has been formed?
And again let's not forget they had the cash to hire any talent they wanted and was available... and they did have quite a few industry veterans with years of experience (some of which have left afaik)
Which still doesn't mean they can easier do what they wanted to do.
For instance FD is working on FPP as well which Cryengine is practically ready-made for it.
There's arguments from both sides to throw around for a conversation like this to last a long time.
Speaking as a complete outsider to SC with no stakes in this: if you can convert real money to ingame money, that puts a real $/€/£ value on anything ingame. Some effects of this are:
- Every UEC-earning activity in the game can be translated into a (typically ridiculously low) hourly wage.
- Every loss of UEC due to a ship repairs, death, lost cargo etc. can be translated into a direct loss of real world currency. You didn't just lose a ship, you effectively lost 5 bucks.
These opportunity costs apply regardless of the fact that you cannot convert UEC back to real currency, or whether you even did convert real currency to UEC. If it takes you 1 hour to earn 1000 UEC, and 1$ also buys you 1000 UEC, you have just grinded at an effective wage of 1$/h.
Now some people can simply ignore this, some people have never even thought about it, some people love it because they do participate in sanctioned RMT, and some people feel insulted over their time being valued so lowly by the game and, by extension, the game designers and/or marketing people.
In theory, the conversion rates could be set so that the effective wage is rather decent, but that would mean that ingame currency is either extremely expensive (e.g. 12$ for 1000 UEC), or ingame currency is acquired really fast (e.g. 1000 UEC is earned in 5 minutes). But neither option would compel anyone but the most whaliest of whales to even bother spending real money on UEC. Since the express goal of RMT is for the company to have an extra stream of income, there is basically no chance the rates will end up like that.
And daily caps on RMT (I don't think CIG are the first to use that) are there simply to deflect P2W accusations. They don't change the underlying principle I just outlined, their effect is rather like a law that puts a hard limit on how many hours an employer can legally require you to work per day.
Plus, someone who wants to buy more than the cap could always do so through multiple accounts and giving the UEC to their main character, and I'd be surprised if CIG were to do more than just lip-service against such a practice.
The difference is in the approach. CIG wants to deliver everything at the same time, whereas ED develops the game step by step. So while CIG requires all parts developed and functional, FD were able to release the core, and now they are filling it with the content.
Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages.
It also means that at some point CIG should have a much larger staff compared to FD.
Last edited:
Curious as to this.
Let's just say you're a new company out to make a very complex game.
What's the advantage of making ALL aspects of it at the same time?
dayrth
Volunteer Moderator
This argument has been put forward a lot to explain why SC is taking much longer. However it seems now that it will not be coming all at once, but in parts and some features will not now be developed until after release. (private servers etc).
Last edited:
Ian Phillips
Volunteer Moderator
Well, this is the path they have chosen. And if successful then it should allow them to say just look at what we have released, we have FPS, space sim etc. already at launch.
This is not that easy, and has hidden dangers. First they need to implement the main servers, only then it is possible to downscale it to the private servers. Also I think that it might not be easy to predict hardware requirements yet. And who knows whether ED has affected CIG's plans for the private servers or not.
That's actually quite a key point.
I was saying back in the first SC threads here - when I was still equally pro SC & ED - that SC had some serious hurdles having to build a company from scratch.
You'd have thought that fact - and the issues with an unfamiliar engine - might have factored into CIG's deadline predictions, forecasts and feature wish list.
But it's clear now it didn't - at all.
It looks like Chris has basically said whatever he's thought whichever audience he happens to be speaking to at the time wants to hear with absolutely no clue whether the engine can do it or whether it conflicts with any other things they are "planning".
Even now he still says they haven't thought a particular thing through when asked. Not that they haven't started programming, or it's a lower priority. No - that they actually haven't even worked out yet what they want to try and do.
4 years in.
Time goes by and basicly i dont see much progress in SC. I guess at the end of 2016 they might have a small Ego Shooter game with small story out, while everything else will still be unfinished.
When i look at the Horizons roadmap of ED, i see a lot nice stuff comming making SC more and more obsolete.
Aside the fact SC wont be a game im interested in, if someone would ask me where to spend his money on a space game and even more money to support its developement i would clearly recommend Elite Dangerous.
Just because they deliver and also hear and do a lot for the community.
When i look at the Horizons roadmap of ED, i see a lot nice stuff comming making SC more and more obsolete.
Aside the fact SC wont be a game im interested in, if someone would ask me where to spend his money on a space game and even more money to support its developement i would clearly recommend Elite Dangerous.
Just because they deliver and also hear and do a lot for the community.
I think Frontier went with the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) philosophy quite early on. I remember Braben said release 1 would be the minimum he considered to be an Elite game in one of the dev diaries.
Honestly I can't see how Frontier could have made a competing high-def online space trader on the budget they had in the same time-frame.
SC seemed to be thinking along the lines of traditional boxed game from the outset. Here is the game with all functionality on day 1. Obviously they did say they wanted to add content "every week" IIRC, but there didn't seem to be a concept of releasing an MVP. I kind of get the impression they have had a reality check and want to release the baby universe, tweak/polish it and effectively work from that. It's pretty much how Frontier were working except that they'll continue to label it Alpha. Maybe it'll be a perpetual-DayZ-alpha type product for quite some time.
Honestly I can't see how Frontier could have made a competing high-def online space trader on the budget they had in the same time-frame.
SC seemed to be thinking along the lines of traditional boxed game from the outset. Here is the game with all functionality on day 1. Obviously they did say they wanted to add content "every week" IIRC, but there didn't seem to be a concept of releasing an MVP. I kind of get the impression they have had a reality check and want to release the baby universe, tweak/polish it and effectively work from that. It's pretty much how Frontier were working except that they'll continue to label it Alpha. Maybe it'll be a perpetual-DayZ-alpha type product for quite some time.
- Status