[Moderator hat on]If this name-calling doesn't stop immediately, there will be consequences.
If this weren't a crowdfunded project, or if the development weren't quite so transparent, then I expect that the project would go more the way of Duke Nukem Forever - at first met with immense excitement from the gaming community at large, then slowly becoming a light-hearted, friendly joke about how it's never coming out, until finally it's rushed out by a third party to an ignoble end. There wasn't a whole forum worth of people following 3DRealms around, trying to get them defunded, before that point.
But it IS a crowdfunded project. If computer game publishers back a stinker like DNF, that's what computer game publishers are for. They have the money for it. But when a company's entire strategy revolves around tricking people into spending large amounts of money on something they'll probably never get, then yes, people should speak out about it.
Or do you also intend to also go around slagging off Gamblers Anonymous for being a forum full of people trying to get casinos defunded? The simple fact is that CIG's entire business model is based on getting people to spend hundreds if not thousands on their game. It's a micromacrotransaction model for a game that doesn't even exist! With all of the nasty psychological tricks that microtransaction models use to persuade whales to part with large amounts (stolen directly from the gambling industry). Do you really think this is something that people should allow to pass without comment?
That's a good point. Allow me to clarify what I meant by attempting to defund them.
I find the efforts of certain people to get backers to request refunds for pledges from 5-6 years ago incredibly distasteful. I think this is bad from a moral standpoint, as your pledge is neither a purchase nor an investment, but more like a donation. If there was evidence of malfeasance, like that guy who used a Kickstarter for a board game to cover his moving expenses, then that's a case where a refund is entirely appropriate. But it seems like, in SC's case, the majority of funds are going to internal and external developers to make a game. Some projects fail, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, and most people accept this.
I also find it bad from a practical standpoint, because the money from Kickstarter pledges from 2012 has long since been spent, and by requesting a refund now you would essentially be diverting funds from new pledges - likely whales - into your own pocket. In a perfect world, they're not donating to cover your refund, they're donating because they want the game made.
To speak to your analogy, this would be like someone going into a GA meeting, declaring that casinos are a scam, handing out pitchforks, and marching them to casinos to demand their already-gambled money back. The casinos are rightly going to laugh them out the door.
However, if you're instead talking about discouraging further funding until they have a game released, I can't say I disagree with that at all, and I've been personally practicing that myself for years. I do think that the project would have been better off without the constant stream of funds derived from a continuous stream of ship concepts being developed for sale.
Mike you seem to be confusing "post-release longevity" with "quality". I still fire up and play Infinite Warfare from time to time; the fact that there aren't mods hasn't changed the quality of the game itself.
Which is why this:
If CoD:IW has all the features of "a" Squadron 42, even with its initial promised feature list and none of the additional features that have been promised in the years since, why is this community, yourself included, not using it as a starting point rather than FS2?
Gets you responses like this:
You're not very bright, are you.
It's like saying "if diamonds are so valuable, why aren't we using those as currency instead of coins?", being smug about it, and then getting mad when people say that's dumb.
I'm not hung up on whether CoD:IW supports mods or not. I even gave away having to develop mod tools ourselves as a freebie. I'm asking why we wouldn't be willing to shoulder our burden ourselves, if CoD:IW really is the modern FS2 or Wing Commander. That's what SQ42 was pitched as. If CoD:IW really delivers on that promise, why isn't modding CoD:IW a road any of us have ever considered travelling?
Yeah, I don't see the point in asking why I'm not modding some other game, or all the dings on Blue Planet. I know how to mod FreeSpace, and it has twenty years of open-source developer tools. Plus it's a universe I really care about and a story I want to continue.
CoD IW is a AAA packaged product I really enjoyed, with full "space legs" and seamless transitions between spaceflight, ground battle, and your home ship while playing through a linear, mission-based campaign with excellent gameplay and a solid story (Kit Harrington aside). It doesn't have any mod tools, but on the other hand, it came out two years ago and you can play it right now.
If that doesn't interest you, cool! But it does everything I would've wanted from a notional Squadron 42. It is also in a lot of ways better-designed than BP (because it benefits from a huge budget and really tight, intuitive controls).
You didn't find the flight model and space combat mission design incredibly simplistic compared to even original, unmodded FS2?
And of course the snappy quip comeback is, if Squadron 42's so good, why aren't you playing it?
Please, please, please point out where I've said SQ42 is good.
You are the one who asserted that CoD:IW has delivered on everything SQ42 promised. That's the assertion I'm challenging. I have not asserted anywhere (at least in the past year or two) that SC/SQ42 is/will be fun to play in either its current or eventual final form. People on this board seem to assume that there are only two positions one can have on SC: blind believer forking over $1000s annually, or incredibly toxic meme-slinger and catchphrase-repeater. If you're assuming that I'm one of the former because I'm not one of the latter, that's on you, not me.