I dont expect too much originality from Star Citizen. Even taking good aspects from previous space games and combining them in a shiny new package would make for a great game. The fact that it has been done before is in no way an argument against SC. And done in an inferior way - you really cant compare simple and unrealistic Battlefield vehicle system with the seamless SC way where you can walk around and interact with ship components. BF is not even a space game. The fact is, there arent many space games where you can walk around the ship while it is flying, too. I could probably count them all on fingers of one hand. So while it is not an entirely original concept, it is definitely something we need more of, IMHO.
Freespace wasnt very original in its time too - it just took the good things from other space games and combined them well.
That it's nothing new isn't meant to be an argument against SC, it's an explanation for why I'm not really impressed.
Freespace 2 has the advantage of story and mission design. Historically, CR is terrible at both of those things. Contrary to most CR fanboys, I don't think shinier Wing Commander or shinier Freelancer is something to get too excited over, and AC's current state does the game no favors.
And no, BF isn't a space game. So what? Space means fewer factors to consider, not more. For example, IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad has been in development for less time than SC has. It's a far more complete game with a significantly more complex combat environment and flight models than SC has. The map has 82340 square kilometers of actual terrain.
SC has a half-baked 16 player closed arena deathmatch game which will soon let you move around the corridors of your ship while it's flying.
BTW, in BF2142, you could walk around the inside of Titans while they were moving. Wasn't too smooth in multiplayer because netcode, but you could do it. As for SC, remember we don't know how well it'll work in actual mutiplayer rather than a LAN.
AC plays well and has potential. Yeah, I think modded FS or Diaspora is more fun, but these games are based on a flight model developed and optimized for many years, the best spaceflight model space games have to offer now. It takes time to pin it down. And about E:D, I play that game too, and I must say I prefer the latest AC builds flight style to E:D.
AC plays well? Have we played the same game? The Hornet flies like ****, and TTK is so long boredom is a bigger enemy than the Vanduul are. If this is CR's vision, it isn't fun. Multicrew won't change that. Neither will generic corridor shooter.
"It takes time to pin it down" would be a lot more convincing if Diaspora didn't have the exact kind of semi-newtonian combat environment SC is going for, yet it's still more fun. This isn't an engine issue, it's a general gameplay issue.
Which is a good thing. The more money they raise from people with deep pockets, the higher quality the product can be - this is a crowdfunded game, no investors. As long as you dont NEED to buy those things to get the final game, I dont see anything wrong. I only own the base package (Aurora).
Alternatively, the more money they get, the more CR can let his imagination run wild and constantly increase the scope of the game until it isn't doable (which, IMO, happened a while ago). Then he runs out of money. How long does $86M last when you have 300 employees?
This isn't an implausible situation. It's exactly what happened with Freelancer, and it's why CR had to sell Digital Anvil to Microsoft. In interviews, CR talks about how if he didn't have this kind of money, he wouldn't be able to make the game he's promised. I've never seen the problem with that. I was much more excited about this project when it was demonstrably achievable, not the bloated mess it now is.
This demo is impressive because it shows the core SC technology, that is large world (up to 8.7 billion kilometres) + spaceship flight + first person mechanics, finally coming together in a playable way. There is a lot of content and gameplay still to add, but I believe now it is only a matter of time, not if, but when.
For SQ42, it's a matter of when (though whether it'll be a good game isn't). For the persistent universe, it's definitely still a matter of if. Basically, if they amend their PU ambitions to something like E:D, it's very doable. But E:D isn't what they're going after. CR wants **** like hundred ship battles with boarding actions and ****. Multicrew isn't the biggest hurdle to overcome. It's not even close. Like I said, it's been done by games like Battlefield and Battlefront over and over again for years. Do you know what the biggest hurdle is? Netcode. SC's netcode has undergone two overhauls over the last two years, and what's that done? The max player count in AC has gone from 8 to 16. 16 single seat fighters. A hundred potentially multicrew ships? Lol. EVE manages massive battles by incorporating time dilation, which SC can't do.
And apparently, according to a networking engineer over on Something Awful, their recent netcode overhaul aren't going to resolve this. Actually, he claims current network and server technology can't manage it period. IDK how credible he is, so take that as you will. Most of that is over my head, but given how netcode issues remain pervasive in pretty much all fast-paced MP games, I don't hold out much hope for CIG. Especially since Frostbite 3 is generally a much more robust engine than CryEngine is in everything from netcode to general optimisation, and Battlefield games still have netcode issues, despite being among the best working large scale FPS games on the market.
Without headbobbing, the player feels like sliding around instead of being grounded in the world. So headbob or not is an artistic choice, there is no objectively right answer, unless it is overdone. I happen to like moderate amount of head bob. Also, headbobbing does happen in real life, after all your head does bob when walking, but is visible only in periphery, because in the center of vision it is compensated by eye movement. This is similar to what SC is going to do, they have a special system where the center of screen wont experience head bobbing and there will be progressively more of it in the periphery. The only downside is that it will only work for screen center, you would need eye tracking to simulate this perfectly..
This is a core problem with SC's development. They're taking gameplay proven to work by other games, and then throwing in pointless, completely unnecessary features for the sake of realism. Your brain compensates for headbobbing. Evidently, at some point in SC's thousand year timeline, it loses this ability. All because CR can't stand the idea that the player's viewpoint might be a few centimeters away from the character model's eyes during the walk animation. It's so dumb.
And the notion that without headbobbing, the player feels like they're sliding around is complete nonsense. This is solved in most games by making the first person model give an indication of movement, not the viewpoint. And it works perfectly well.
There's a reason games don't match first and third person animations. This is one of them. It's a stupid idea that adds absolutely nothing to gameplay, yet CIG spends months implementing it and it ends up looking and feeling like ****. In SC, fun and logical gameplay decisions are subordinate to ~realism~ and ~immersion~ (god I hate that word).