[deathfun]

or Elite, which is a game that is still mile wide and inch deep several years after release. Id rather have them fail than that.

Actually, I don't mind this nearly as much as some folks. The story is literally developing in *real time*. Least, that's how it feels playing it
What game can claim it has done that?

Then again, I've put 213 hours into Elite (not a lot in comparison) and I've yet to go "I'm bored"
So as far as I'm concerned, the inch deep is relative to the person. I'm currently inciting a civil war in a neighbouring system to my main base so as to both expand my chosen faction's influence and get a pretty penny too!

Though as it currently stands with what I've seen, SC seems like it's going to follow similar to the ED mission running, but also have a campaign as an aside a la SQ42

especially if the bugs are merely cosmetic and happen only sometimes.

I was under the impression a great deal are game breaking

[Dragon]

Which would be a valid argument if SC was in an internal or tightly restricted alpha. But as the regular free flight weekends show, they believe this is good enough to serve as a demo, despite very little of the game's end state having been implemented.

In case you haven't noticed, what used to be a tightly restricted internal alpha tends to be called "Early Access" these days. ArmA3 was in a rather sorry state when I first saw it (it had a community alpha release I jumped into), though it was more of a matter of being devoid of content than serious bugs (not that it didn't have those, as well). It got added to over the years and I can even claim credit for reporting a few early issues. TBH, if they didn't release what they have they'd have people calling SC out for being vaporware. I think what they did is actually the better solution, as long as the fact of it being an alpha is made clear. They probably shouldn't charge that much, but as long as people are willing to pay...

Also, as anyone who has ever worked on a large software project knows, bugs either get fixed immediately or not at all. It's a technical debt thing, a concept which you should really try to grok.

Well, you can always scrap the old, buggy system and replace it. Kerbal Space Program seems to have done just that multiple times. And some old bugs are getting fixed (seen that in ArmA3, as well). Indeed, it's currently a constant argument between those who want more features and those who want less bugs. This is always a balancing act, though SC is not so much leaning towards the "more features" side as lying flat with its head towards it. Not a good thing by any means.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

The more bugs there are, the more it shows that they are actually working on the game instead of falling into the worst trap of early access games - lack of real progress and too much focus on mere bug fixing in the name of being prematurely user friendly. I wouldnt want SC to end up like Minecraft, which is basically the same game as the first version but with a few more boxes, or Elite, which is a game that is still mile wide and inch deep several years after release. Id rather have them fail than that.

You cannot make an omelete without breaking a few eggs. Bug fixing comes late in the development, especially if the bugs are merely cosmetic and happen only sometimes.

Once again, your grasp of software development, and video game development in particular, appears to be rather abyssmal.

Bug creep is a rather serious problem, as they are often symptoms of deeper problems with the piece of software you are developping that at some point will *need* to be adressed. And the more you delay it, the more costly the fix is gonna be. And yes, something that seems as innocuous as rendering bugs can require a fix that ranges from "that one conditional test is messed up" to "unfixable unless we rewrite this whole submodule from scratch".

Trust us, technical debt is a *****, and your software needs to be well thought out before you even start implementing features to avoid it as much as possible. One of the requirements for that is having a clear roadmap with well defined milestones. Which, from what I can gather, Star Citizen is utterly lacking.

What it got is vaguely defined milestones and a heap of apparently highly visible bugs that suggests that some things are rather deeply broken with their CryEngine 3 (which, as others pointed out, is supposed to be a mature game engine at this point).


And blowing off their deadlines repeatedly to the degree that they have is a big red flag that indicates that they seem to be unable to get step #1 of pretty  much every kind of project right : evaluate how much work needs to be done, and how much of a margin for risks do you need.

[karajorma]

Here's a simple reason why you shouldn't leave bugs to fester. When a bug occurs in recently written code, the programmer knows that code pretty well as they only just worked on it. They remember what it does and how all the bits are interconnected. 2-3 years later, that programmer might not even work at the company any more. Even if they do they're going to have to relearn what the code is doing before they can fix it. This takes time. Time = delayed release.

[Axem]

Meanwhile in breaking news...

Squadron 42 release "delayed" into "2017"

[Det. Bullock]

Meanwhile in breaking news...

Squadron 42 release "delayed" into "2017"

I'm surprised, shocked and flabbergasted! 

[karajorma]

So am I.


That they didn't bite the bullet and delay it until 2018.

[The E]

In case you haven't noticed, what used to be a tightly restricted internal alpha tends to be called "Early Access" these days. ArmA3 was in a rather sorry state when I first saw it (it had a community alpha release I jumped into), though it was more of a matter of being devoid of content than serious bugs (not that it didn't have those, as well). It got added to over the years and I can even claim credit for reporting a few early issues. TBH, if they didn't release what they have they'd have people calling SC out for being vaporware. I think what they did is actually the better solution, as long as the fact of it being an alpha is made clear. They probably shouldn't charge that much, but as long as people are willing to pay...

SC is the only game I know of that combines a multimillion dollar budget and unimaginable amounts of hype with an attitude towards what is and isn't releasable commonly found in the Steam Early Access trash bin. It is less feature-rich than the average Unity template resell scam in its current state.

And yet, the Citizens can't contain themselves. "It'll be the last game I ever need", they say. "I sold my house for a jpg", they say. "Elite is sooooo shallow", they claim. Have they not seen No Man's Sky? Are they not aware that they're following the same pattern of a community constantly hyping themselves up and being gleefully encouraged in this by the developers (only with added exploitative preorder scheme on top)?

Again and again, it all comes down to this: CIG is absolutely terrible at planning. The correct plan to follow would have been the Elite plan: Release a core game that's enjoyable. Bundle up secondary features into expansions that are released later. Evolve the game over time in response to what the players are actually doing. That way, you have a good milestone you can work towards, there are goals which can be achieved, releasable progress can be shown in 2 or 3 years, and you can stress-test the core gameplay to see if everything that was promised is actually doable within the framework of the game.

CIG's releases so far, late, bug-ridden and incomplete as they are, have done very little to make the game more attractive to people not already on the hype train.

[Luis Dias]

ED seems terribly boring as a game (right now), but I do have a considerate amount of respect towards its development process and their relationship to the consumers. If only other developers were as mature.

[The E]

ED seems terribly boring as a game (right now), but I do have a considerate amount of respect towards its development process and their relationship to the consumers. If only other developers were as mature.

It is, in many ways, a boring game. About as boring as, say, Truck Simulator games or Farm Simulator games. There are pockets of excitement to be found in it, of course (there's nothing quite as nailbiting as getting intercepted light seconds away from your target destination when you've already barely escaped the previous batch of pirates), but it's very much a "Here's something you can do for a couple hours without too much stress" kind of game, which is just right for me but naturally not something everyone can get behind.

[Det. Bullock]

ED seems terribly boring as a game (right now), but I do have a considerate amount of respect towards its development process and their relationship to the consumers. If only other developers were as mature.

That's what I thought too (I got bored with the X games, tolerated a bit more TC until it got boring too, and abandoned Privateer and expansion once the plot ended) but for some reason I clocked in 127 hours since July in this game and don't really feel them.

[666maslo666]

The correct plan to follow would have been the Elite plan: Release a core game that's enjoyable. Bundle up secondary features into expansions that are released later. Evolve the game over time in response to what the players are actually doing. That way, you have a good milestone you can work towards, there are goals which can be achieved, releasable progress can be shown in 2 or 3 years, and you can stress-test the core gameplay to see if everything that was promised is actually doable within the framework of the game.

I cant agree with that. As I said, Elite is not a bad game, but if SC was like Elite, I would be very disappointed. Elite spends way too much development effort on polish and too little on implementing new features and content. Thats why it is "mile wide, inch deep".

The problem with Star Citizen is not bugs, crashes, long loading times and lack of polish. Those things are to be expected in an alpha game heavily in development, and Id certainly rather play a broken build than nothing. "Early access" doesnt mean you are entitled to a polished game at all.

The problem with Star Citizen is that many of its features are very delayed. We are nearing 4th year of development, and there is still no complete star system, only a handful of ship components and upgrades, many ship systems are still not implemented especially on bigger ships, there are only a handful of missions, there is no mining, space trucking, FPS is rudimentary etc.

This is the core problem of SC development, not the fact that it is not user friendly and characters are deformed sometimes, lol.

Alpha 3.0 due at the end of the year promises to deliver many of the aforementioned features, and if it delivers, bugs or no bugs, my hype levels will rise again. If it doesnt, ha! I may even join the ranks of SC detractors myself..

[Phantom Hoover]

Alpha 3.0 due at the end of the year promises to deliver many of the aforementioned features, and if it delivers, bugs or no bugs, my hype levels will rise again. If it doesnt, ha! I may even join the ranks of SC detractors myself..

can we just get a solid toxx clause on this please mods?

[The E]

I cant agree with that. As I said, Elite is not a bad game, but if SC was like Elite, I would be very disappointed. Elite spends way too much development effort on polish and too little on implementing new features and content. Thats why it is "mile wide, inch deep".

Warning, cheap shot incoming: And this is different from SC how, exactly?

See, you can rightfully claim that the basic trading/bounty hunting/mining gameplay in ED is shallow, but what exactly is SC going to do that will avoid this? What are they going to do to the basic formulas inherent in those gameplay types to make them deep?

The problem with Star Citizen is not bugs, crashes, long loading times and lack of polish. Those things are to be expected in an alpha game heavily in development, and Id certainly rather play a broken build than nothing.

No, the problem is unclear direction, unclear concepts of what gameplay will be, seemingly no coherent business goals other than "sell more jpgs".

Oh, and bugs, crashes and long loading times.

The problem with Star Citizen is that many of its features are very delayed. We are nearing 4th year of development, and there is still no complete star system, only a handful of ship components and upgrades, many ship systems are still not implemented especially on bigger ships, there are only a handful of missions, there is no mining, space trucking, FPS is rudimentary etc.

You yourself have consistently claimed that development "is just getting started". When the original SC development plan was released, with a succession of modules each focussed on getting one aspect of the gameplay right and testing it out in a sandboxed environment, that was a reasonable plan.

And then CIG started ignoring that plan. Arena Commander is mostly abandoned, the social module was effectively cancelled, Star Marine Has Never Been A Thing, Citizen!, and now they're doing all development within that thing they call Crusader?

This is the core problem of SC development, not the fact that it is not user friendly and characters are deformed sometimes, lol.

Models getting deformed and collision detection going bad are core problems. They are things that Should Not Happen in a supposedly mature engine.

User friendliness is also a core problem as soon as you decide to invite newcomers to the game. When it's just the backers, the lack of a tutorial is not a big deal. When you invite people to try your game out over a weekend, it very much is. When you do that, and you don't provide people with good ways to learn how to move your spaceship and make it go fast to new places, then there are going to be a lot of people who will write your game off as an overly complicated mess.

[Luis Dias]

E:D does it right. It may be "inch deep", but at least it delivers. Everyone should do this. As we are now in a new age where games are "beta forever" and always improving through DLCs (paid or not), E:D does it correctly, launching each different kind of content when it's ready, and always conservative regarding what they release. Still, consistent in its development and improvements. I can see a future where even I will play it, regardless of the price. It maintains a good community interested in the game and a good will with everyone who has ever paid for it from the beggining.

[Aesaar]

I cant agree with that. As I said, Elite is not a bad game, but if SC was like Elite, I would be very disappointed.

Of course you would.  If SC was like Elite, you'd have to judge it as the game it is, not as the game you dream it'll be. 

Nevermind the fact that there's absolutely no evidence that SC will manage to have significant depth, especially considering just how many things need to be incorporated.

The point at which SC is fully released as a ground breaking space simulation game, offering top quality dog-fighting with realistic Newtonian physics, full planetary exploration of high quality procedurally generated planets, all previously mentioned professions and character development implemented in a fun way, a fully functioning and balanced economy where piracy, mining, trading, passenger transportation, news reporting, auditing, exploration and all other gameplay types are fully viable and fun. Functional and enjoyable ship boarding mechanics, with FPS mechanics rivalling the latest generation of dedicated FPS games. All of the PU features fully supported in an offline mode as well as an online one. A lengthy and deep single player campaign. Every other promised feature that I have no doubt forgotten about, fully implemented in a fun and enjoyable way. All of this providing lasting enjoyment of at least 6 months to everyone, from those who have $30,000 invested to those who have just $30 without any feeling of pay to win advantage being given to those who paid more while at the same time ensuring that they do not feel as if they have been ripped off, in a universe of over a million concurrent players with battles involving 200 individuals or more.

Yeah, sure, that's perfectly achievable.

[Spoon]

Every time I see these numbers: "in a universe of over a million concurrent players with battles involving 200 individuals or more." I chuckle. That's definitely not going to happen in this universe.

The problem with Star Citizen is not bugs, crashes, long loading times and lack of polish.

lol okay.

[666maslo666]

When the original SC development plan was released, with a succession of modules each focussed on getting one aspect of the gameplay right and testing it out in a sandboxed environment, that was a reasonable plan.

And then CIG started ignoring that plan. Arena Commander is mostly abandoned, the social module was effectively cancelled, Star Marine Has Never Been A Thing, Citizen!, and now they're doing all development within that thing they call Crusader?

I dont agree with this. Quite the opposite, what CIG should have done is to pursue the development of Crusader map (persistent universe) from the very beginning, and then implement Star Marine, social module, dogfighting etc inside of that basic framework. Trying to develop various modules instead of core game was one reason why the game is delayed now, those were multiple developmental detours. There is a reason why no game is developed in such a modular fashion. Right now any modules should be rightly cancelled and all development efforts should go towards implementing Stanton system as a playable area in Alpha 3.0. Thats what will make or break the game.

[LaineyBugsDaddy]

While this is possibly true, I think that if they had stuck to their plan, they'd still have more to show for it even if the plan started with detours.

[666maslo666]

While this is possibly true, I think that if they had stuck to their plan, they'd still have more to show for it even if the plan started with detours.

Another aspect is that while developing interim modules instead of core game may not be the most efficient thing to do, it allowed them to release something playable to the backers quickly and thus bring moar money in. So in the end it could be that Chris in his infinite wisdom made the right choice. We shall see..