Star Citizen

[Dowly]

Alpha 3.0 is LIVE. Yay!

[Skybird]

Alpha...? I recall the times when an alpha version of a game was considered to be so early that the public would never have a chance to see it in the wild. Not to mention: already paying for it.

[Dowly]

[XenonSurf]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Very nice presentation, but it lacks answers: For my part, I'm not so much interested in MMO games, but very interested in space games with single player mode. Does Star Citizen qualify for this (after such a long waiting time), and how does this video fit with it?

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by XenonSurf

Very nice presentation, but it lacks answers: For my part, I'm not so much interested in MMO games, but very interested in space games with single player mode. Does Star Citizen qualify for this (after such a long waiting time), and how does this video fit with it?

Nothing stops you from playing (experiencing would perhaps be a better word at this stage) SC alone, it is a sandbox after all. If you're looking for offline single player, then that would be Squadron 42 which has its beta slated for Q2 2020.


As for the video, all that you see is in the game at the moment.


Here are the March 23 roadmaps for SQ42 and SC:
SQ42: https://i.imgur.com/jhUafZ3.jpg
SC: https://i.imgur.com/8GxtRHB.jpg

[XenonSurf]

Thanks Dowly for the info!


Greetings,

[Dowly]

No worries!


In other news, CIG has just informed that 3.5 will go live over the weekend.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/c...unces-Alpha-35

[Threadfin]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Squadron 42 which has its beta slated for Q2 2020.

That's a funny way of writing 2014


What a sh!t show this game is. I wanted it to be good. I wanted to play. I still do!


But very glad I never gave up any money. Maybe one day I'll play SC. But the way it's going that day will never come. There needs to be a serious shift in how Roberts goes about spending his oodles of free money.



Most games I am interested in I'll check in to every month or two to see how it's coming along, when it might be finished. Following SC those months turn in to years. I feel sorry for folks that put their cash in to this boondoggle. For folks that spent thousands upon thousands on a game that is nowhere near any sort of finished state, I feel pity. I admire the enthusiasm and optimism, but not their judgement.



7 years? on and it's still an alpha, there is no 'game' there. Actually, alpha is not what it is. An alpha release is fully functional, but lacks content and polish. At best it's pre-alpha, but hard to keep the money rolling in unless you release it this way. It is years from being finished, if at all. I wish I could call Star Citizen a scam. But I can't really since there actually is something there, and they are working on it. But it is one of the most mismanaged projects in gaming history, if not top of the heap. I don't know if it's incompetence or just the fact that they simply are not capable of delivering all they have promised. But whatever is true, it's a disaster of the first order, and thousands upon thousands of well-meaning gamers have stuck their money in it hoping for it to become reality. I hope for their sake it happens one day.


Squadron 42 was slated for a 2014 release date. 2014! And now it's scheduled for beta in 2020. I'll believe that when I see it. To my eyes, what they release amount to tech demos. Things that look fantastic, even if there is nothing propping it up. Makes for great trailers. Those trailers spark interest, and another round of crowdfunding, which is then blown on more marketing. If Star Citizen fails, I suspect in the end it will be because they ran out of money trying to make it all a reality. I would have thought the money would have dried up some time ago, but people always manage to surprise me.


Star Citizen should be exhibit A on the pitfalls of crowdfunding. The free reign Roberts has had has led to an acute absence of accountability. If he had a publisher, SC would have either been released or cancelled. Instead, it just goes on, and on, and on.... and likely will continue to do as long as people keep giving CIG their money.

[McBeck]

Originally Posted by Threadfin

That's a funny way of writing 2014


What a sh!t show this game is. I wanted it to be good. I wanted to play. I still do!


But very glad I never gave up any money. Maybe one day I'll play SC. But the way it's going that day will never come. There needs to be a serious shift in how Roberts goes about spending his oodles of free money.



Most games I am interested in I'll check in to every month or two to see how it's coming along, when it might be finished. Following SC those months turn in to years. I feel sorry for folks that put their cash in to this boondoggle. For folks that spent thousands upon thousands on a game that is nowhere near any sort of finished state, I feel pity. I admire the enthusiasm and optimism, but not their judgement.



7 years? on and it's still an alpha, there is no 'game' there. Actually, alpha is not what it is. An alpha release is fully functional, but lacks content and polish. At best it's pre-alpha, but hard to keep the money rolling in unless you release it this way. It is years from being finished, if at all. I wish I could call Star Citizen a scam. But I can't really since there actually is something there, and they are working on it. But it is one of the most mismanaged projects in gaming history, if not top of the heap. I don't know if it's incompetence or just the fact that they simply are not capable of delivering all they have promised. But whatever is true, it's a disaster of the first order, and thousands upon thousands of well-meaning gamers have stuck their money in it hoping for it to become reality. I hope for their sake it happens one day.


Squadron 42 was slated for a 2014 release date. 2014! And now it's scheduled for beta in 2020. I'll believe that when I see it. To my eyes, what they release amount to tech demos. Things that look fantastic, even if there is nothing propping it up. Makes for great trailers. Those trailers spark interest, and another round of crowdfunding, which is then blown on more marketing. If Star Citizen fails, I suspect in the end it will be because they ran out of money trying to make it all a reality. I would have thought the money would have dried up some time ago, but people always manage to surprise me.


Star Citizen should be exhibit A on the pitfalls of crowdfunding. The free reign Roberts has had has led to an acute absence of accountability. If he had a publisher, SC would have either been released or cancelled. Instead, it just goes on, and on, and on.... and likely will continue to do as long as people keep giving CIG their money.

I think SC is a story of how NOT to set expectations. So much has been added to the scope since early days of funding.

I have spent many hours in SC and have had a great time as the different early versions of the gameplays were made available.

On the SQ42 beta - I am also not too trusting on this, but they have more riding on this than previously SC releases.

[Threadfin]

I think expectations are fine. They usually are a function of promises made. The developers give a an overview of their project, outlining features, timelines and so on.



That's normal. What is not normal in the case of Star Citizen is that virtually none of that has been met. Above, a roadmap was posted. Have CIG met any of their roadmaps on time? It seems a reach to use these roadmaps as a measure of progress when until now they've been virtually meaningless.


What should have happened in my opinion.... As the money poured in and scope creep and ever-ambitious plans sprouted up the devs should have (and had an obligation as far as I am concerned) still delivered the original promises. If they wanted to expand on the scope of the project that's fine, once the original promises were met, and backers expectations satisfied, then the time is right for adding to it.


But that's not what CIG has done. They have essentially used this expanded scope as the reason that the game is far behind schedule. They are saying that since the goalposts have moved, and the project is now far more impressive, that of course we haven't delivered. Look at all we have to do!


Consider Elite Dangerous. They delivered a core in line with original promises. After that they expanded on it. The kickstarter began in November of 2012 and the game was released in December of 2014. In the five years since then, Elite has continued to expand, rolling out regular updates. They didn't opt to just develop it for seven years until all of it was ready. Star Citizen should have done exactly this. Get all core mechanics and one star system done, fully playable, and release it to the many folks who have paid for it. At the very least, Squadron 42 should have been out the door years ago. The fact they can say it's now scheduled for beta in 2020 is a joke. And then supporters throw out roadmaps and say look, all's well. But it's not.


CIG is quick to say that supporters 'voted' for this revised plan, to allow CIG unprecedented latitude to take their own sweet time. But that's disingenuous at best. From what I can tell, the poll they ran represented only 7% of backers, and of those, only 55% voted for it. Hardly a mandate by the masses.


Here's a quote from CIG from the poll



"the more funds we can raise in the pre-launch phase, the more we can invest in additional content (more ships, characters etc.) and perhaps more importantly we can apply greater number of resources to the various tasks to ensure we deliver the full functionality sooner rather than later."


Nowhere was it explicitly stated that backers were voting for a 10-year dev cycle. Instead, they believed they were voting for increased scope, and the belief was that it would come from hiring additional staff to add this content but within the original timeframe.


And another


"This brings me to the topic of stretch goals. When we started the Star Citizen campaign, the purpose of the stretch goals was to make things we had imagined but didn’t think we could afford possible: adding capital ship systems, studying procedural generation, hiring additional artists to build more ships at once and the like. The additional funding continues to expand the scope of the game and make what we’re doing possible… but it’s becoming more and more difficult to quantify that with more stretch goals (and to explain that to the rest of the world, which likes to focus only on how much money we’ve made.)
Should we continue to offer stretch goals?"


Are you kidding me? And even if that's true, why couldn't it have been done with expansions of the core release?


GIG and Roberts have essentially promised you the greatest pizza ever made. Eager to experience this, you hand over your money and are given a tomato.


But what's this? This isn't a pizza.


Oh, but you see, one day it will be. Epic takes time, don't you know



7 years later you (and millions of others) are holding a rotten tomato.

[Threadfin]

Oh, and you can buy concept art of the pepperoni for $27,000.


https://kotaku.com/star-citizen-now-has-a-27-000-ship-pack-1826404455

[Dowly]

While not going in great detail, this video answers some of the questions of why is it taking so long:



As for the $27,000 "concept art" pack, have you actually bothered to check how many of those ships/vehicles are ready and in-game atm, Threadfin?

Of the 117 ships/vehicles in the pack, 87 are ready and in-game currently. (Both numbers include variants)

[Threadfin]

Originally Posted by Dowly

As for the $27,000 "concept art" pack, have you actually bothered to check how many of those ships/vehicles are ready and in-game atm, Threadfin?

Of the 117 ships/vehicles in the pack, 87 are ready and in-game currently. (Both numbers include variants)

I want to watch that video, and will later.


I did not check if those ships had advanced beyond the concept stage. 87 are in the game? In what state? All fully flyable and functional? How many were in when the package was made available for sale? It was about a year ago if I recall.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Threadfin

I did not check if those ships had advanced beyond the concept stage. 87 are in the game? In what state? All fully flyable and functional? How many were in when the package was made available for sale? It was about a year ago if I recall.

When a ship becomes flight ready it has all the "base" systems one would expect it to have; detailed interiors, weapons, flight model, internal systems etc. Expection are ships with special roles which might not have the needed mechanics in game yet, such as the largest flyable ship currently, the Reclaimer, is a salvage ship, but salvage mechanics aren't in game atm.

I've no idea which ships were flyable a year ago. But it can't have been that much less than what we have now. Pure guess: 70-ish

Of course, you don't need the $27,000 pack to get these ships, you can buy them individually or upgrade your current ship. Also, as the article points out, the pack was requested by the community. I don't see anything wrong in giving someone with that amount of money to spent what they want.

[McBeck]

Originally Posted by Threadfin

I think expectations are fine. They usually are a function of promises made. The developers give a an overview of their project, outlining features, timelines and so on.



That's normal. What is not normal in the case of Star Citizen is that virtually none of that has been met. Above, a roadmap was posted. Have CIG met any of their roadmaps on time? It seems a reach to use these roadmaps as a measure of progress when until now they've been virtually meaningless.

I disagree - the expectations were NOT set correctly. The scope had massive expansion which not only meant longer time, but a bigger team needed to be hired.

What was not outlined correctly was:
1) Games of this size takes 5-10 years to make (if you already have a dev team and tools)
2) We dont have a dev team - we need to hire
3) We dont have tools - we need to develop them as we go along.
4) This scale of 2 games has never been done before from scratch.

Since they started using quarterly releases they have followed through on those releases since 3.0. However some elements was pushed and some was delivered in patches. If you consider the speed of their development over the past 12-18 months they have delivered more and more and at a higher speed than earlier, which follows the premise of getting their tools and tech in place.