[NGTM-1R]

So disagree with me.  But until you come up with better reasoning than "you're an ass", don't expect me to care.

Presentation matters. You come across as incredibly bitter and angry about the issue, making anything you say automatically suspect in the eyes of party without prior knowledge. You can scream in rage unto the void about how it's bad and wrong and a betrayal and Chris Roberts is terrible all you want, but as long as you're screaming in rage, nobody really cares to listen.

Tone it down for chrissakes. Even though you're right you are literally not accomplishing anything besides giving people reasons not to take you seriously.

@Karaj: As a veteran of the Kazan Wars, you should know full well the point that was being made here and why it was. Shall I quote Aldo to you? "Even when you agree with the man his attitude is so noxious you find yourself compelled to take the opposite side." People who talk this way in Steam topics get muzzled for it.

[Flipside]

The points DS makes are not entirely invalid. I'm not exceptionally enamoured of him, but he is saying something that needs to be said about Kickstarter and other sites.

There's always been something that has kept me away from Star Citizen, not sure what it is, possibly the fact that whatever Space-Sim video I watched, there was inevitably someone gushing about how good it was going to be in the comments. Having backed Starforge, I kind of dial back my opinion of many Kickstarter developers concepts of 'realistic' goals. As Peter Molyneux proved, sometimes it's possible to overpromise in order to get your backing, and not realize till later that you cannot possibly meet those goals in gameplay-compatible fashion.

Feature Creep is still alive and well, and that's fine, ambition fuels progress, but you have to draw a line under it all at some point.

[karajorma]

@NGTM-1R I got the point you were making. I'm just pointing out that you could have said it more diplomatically. Your second post on the subject is what your first post should have been.

[Aesaar]

NGTM-1R: I'm not trying to convince anyone.  I'm explaining the problem with CIG.  I don't really care whether you believe me or not.  There are people on this forum whose opinion of me I care about.  You are not one of them.  If you feel like disagreeing with me on principle, I'll address pertinent arguments and ignore the rest.

But I'll take what you've said under consideration and try to write something a bit less passionate.  This is the best I can do:

I really wish there was something good about SC I could point to, but there isn't.  I backed in March 2013, got up to 430$ at one point (I sold all my pledges at a profit last year).  I really wanted to like this game.  Three years and 85 million dollars after the Kickstarter, CIG has missed each and every single one of their project deadlines.  They're 4 months behind this year's schedule, and 7 months behind last year's schedule.  The scope of the game has expanded massively, and I no longer believe CR and CIG have the ability to make a decent game out of SC.

You are right about one thing: I am somewhat bitter.  This game could have been something pretty good, and it was the initial pitch that sold me on it: A space sim where ships operate in a physically well-simulated environment, where maneuvering thrusters are actually modeled and can be shot out, affecting ship handling?  Hey, that sounds great.  Physically walking around the carrier in the campaign, that sounds pretty cool too.  Most importantly, this is doable.   Since then, CR has let his obsession with making ~the perfect game~ run rampant, and it's turned SC from an ambitious but reasonable space sim into some bloated SF life simulator that simply can't hope to be any good even if it gets to a full release.  The scope is simply too great.

So yeah, that's made me a bit bitter, and cries of "I trust CR" really annoy me because he's the reason this game is probably going to fail.

[666maslo666]

I think was clear long ago that Star Citizen will be delayed, but I dont consider that a big problem. There is nothing wrong with "release when its done" attitude, I am patient enough. Its a good thing, not a bad thing, that they seem to have chosen that instead of rushing it or cutting features. Especially when there is no publisher to get mad about it, and while some crowdfunders might get mad, do you really think they wont play the game once its finally released? Its an impotent rage, quickly forgotten once the release actually happens (as long as the game is good of course).

As for the quality of the finished product, I after trying out the revamped flight model, I am again pretty optimistic. Its now pretty close to Diaspora actually. And the fact that they are focusing on technical/simulation aspects perhaps at the expense of story and gameplay might be worrying for people more interested in the story and vanilla game, but a big part of why I look forward to SC is the modding/total conversion potential of having such an advanced space opera game engine available. Even if the SC base game turns out to be a meh tech demo, I expect the game engine to spawn some awesome mods/TCs over time (Freespace Citizen?), or even entire new games by being licensed to third parties.

[Aesaar]

Duke Nukem Forever had a "when it's done" release schedule.

You can't release when you're constantly remaking assets because production is taking so long those assets are becoming dated. 

Every single piece of art you saw last year has been revamped since then, every single ship has either been reworked or is scheduled to be.

[karajorma]

That last comment is distinctly worrying. Get the game done. Then remodel. Otherwise you'll end up constantly remaking models.

[666maslo666]

Duke Nukem Forever had a "when it's done" release schedule.

You can't release when you're constantly remaking assets because production is taking so long those assets are becoming dated. 

Every single piece of art you saw last year has been revamped since then, every single ship has either been reworked or is scheduled to be.

Its not that they are dated, its that they can make them even better - iterative approach to asset creation.

Its a "good" thing that we are now in the age when graphics are already not advancing very much and releasing your game even a few years out of date does not mean its technically dated, especially when you targeted only the high-end PCs during development. If Crysis was released today, it would still compare favorably and that game is 8 years old! Consolitis has slowed down technical progress, which might be bad for gaming overall, but its good for delayed games - even a few years delay now does not mean your game will be dated on release.

[Luis Dias]

I might be making enemies here, but I'm with Derek on this one. Yes, I KNOW. I KNOW. Don't lecture me on Derek. I KNOW. You just have to read his post. Jesus, what a personality. BUT STILL. He. Has. A. Point. And at some point in time, he will have a LEGAL point as well.

This is going to bomb. And hard.

[The E]

As for the quality of the finished product, I after trying out the revamped flight model, I am again pretty optimistic. Its now pretty close to Diaspora actually. And the fact that they are focusing on technical/simulation aspects perhaps at the expense of story and gameplay might be worrying for people more interested in the story and vanilla game, but a big part of why I look forward to SC is the modding/total conversion potential of having such an advanced space opera game engine available. Even if the SC base game turns out to be a meh tech demo, I expect the game engine to spawn some awesome mods/TCs over time (Freespace Citizen?), or even entire new games by being licensed to third parties.

Yeah, about that: Have they actually given any hints how the modding pipeline will work, or how good a scripting system they have?
Way I see it, Crysis modding was already not that easy. Modding this monster of a game, with all the many, MANY moving parts it has compared to something as simple as Crysis, is an order of magnitude or three harder. I think we're going to see Bethesda-style modding (i.e. asset replacement here or there, maybe even some single-player missions or something) at best.

Its a "good" thing that we are now in the age when graphics are already not advancing very much and releasing your game even a few years out of date does not mean its technically dated, especially when you targeted only the high-end PCs during development. If Crysis was released today, it would still compare favorably and that game is 8 years old! Consolitis has slowed down technical progress, which might be bad for gaming overall, but its good for delayed games - even a few years delay now does not mean your game will be dated on release.

It really wouldn't. Crysis has, if anything, aged really badly.

And yeah, I could understand them redoing their assets once to switch to PBR. That's understandable. Redoing them again, that's a sign of a developer who values perfection higher than functionality, which is death for any project (The better being the enemy of the good and all that).


Compare Star Citizen to Elite Dangerous: Frontier had a really good idea of what they wanted their game to be at release. They got some funding, made the game, released it in a playable state and got to work on incremental add-ons after launch, a strategy people seem generally happy about.
SC, on the other hand? Dozens of features added in later. Every public milestone missed by months. Ships that were in the original KS pitch still not flyable (Looking at you, Freelancer), but look at all these new shinies right here!

CIG communicates a lot. But I would put it to you that what they're actually doing is swamping us with minutiae in the hope that we'll mistake that for actual, big picture news, and that's somewhat galling. If CR came out and said, "Okay, we're hopelessly behind schedule, we're going to start shelving features until we got it cut down to something we can release in alpha state by the end of the year", I'd have much more faith in the project. But as it stands, that's not gonna happen.

Iterative game development is something new and potentially awesome. Why isn't SC using it?

I might be making enemies here, but I'm with Derek on this one. Yes, I KNOW. I KNOW. Don't lecture me on Derek. I KNOW. You just have to read his post. Jesus, what a personality. BUT STILL. He. Has. A. Point. And at some point in time, he will have a LEGAL point as well.

This is going to bomb. And hard.

I think you'll find that most of us who have posted here agree with that sentiment

[karajorma]

If Derek Smart is reading this thread, I'm sure he'll be amazed by that fact.

[666maslo666]

Compare Star Citizen to Elite Dangerous: Frontier had a really good idea of what they wanted their game to be at release. They got some funding, made the game, released it in a playable state and got to work on incremental add-ons after launch, a strategy people seem generally happy about.

Elite: Dangerous is honestly pretty shallow and while not a bad game, it can get repetitive fast. It is more like Arena Commander or FPS module in terms of complexity rather than Star Citizen itself. Arena Commander release can be considered partially iterative development, too. It is playable and I would even say that it is fun.

Also, while iterative development is fine, sometimes you just have to wait it out until core engine features are properly developed and there is not shortcut possible. That is the stage where SC is now. I have a feeling that once multicrew space combat, FPS and 64-bit update is properly integrated into one map, which should be done this year hopefully, we will see a lot more of iterative releases and playable content.

[The E]

Elite: Dangerous is honestly pretty shallow and while not a bad game, it can get repetitive fast. It is more like Arena Commander or FPS module in terms of complexity rather than Star Citizen itself. Arena Commander release can be considered partially iterative development, too. It is playable and I would even say that it is fun.

That's not the point. You're right, E:D is a bit shallow, but it is getting deeper with every major update and most importantly, it's released and people are playing it right now.
Compare that to Arena Commander: Last I checked, there were something like 4 playable ships on three maps in 4 game modes. That is after it has been out for a year.

That's not iterative development. That's throwing people bones instead of meat.

[Hades]

Also, while iterative development is fine, sometimes you just have to wait it out until core engine features are properly developed and there is not shortcut possible. That is the stage where SC is now. I have a feeling that once multicrew space combat, FPS and 64-bit update is properly integrated into one map, which should be done this year hopefully, we will see a lot more of iterative releases and playable content.

This is not happening by the end of the year in any meaningful capacity, here's why and what you fail to understand about game development:

• The FPS segment of Starcitizen and the space combat of Star Citizen are both effectively two different games that need to be merged.
• This means that what would basically be the effort of making two separate games is instead magnified when they're one, because you have to do a ton more work to actually get them to work with each other and be relatively seamless
• Effectively this means that what the actual workload amounts to is closer to making three games as opposed to just two.

This is the problem with Star Citizen's broadened scope and development plan. The more you add to a game the more exponentially high the amount of work is needed to realize that increased scope. This is especially bad when you try to do everything at once, because development becomes a mess. This is further amplified by the fact that several different sub-studios split up over the world are working on the game (AFAIK). What trying to do everything at once will end up accomplishing is instead doing nothing at all.

Chris Roberts is basically George Lucas because he lacks a natural filter, he has to have someone or some entity to reign in his insanity, hold his hand and point him in the right direction. What'll eventually happen is, if the game releases then it'll be years in the future and the final product will be a mediocre mess that had to cut back on a lot of the promised features in order to finally release. It'll be like GTA5 but it'll be a failure on a much larger magnitude.

[Aesaar]

Chris Roberts is basically George Lucas because he lacks a natural filter, he has to have someone or some entity to reign in his insanity, hold his hand and point him in the right direction.

This.  Chris Roberts is an amazing idea guy.  He's the kind of guy whose ideas revolutionize something, the way George Lucas revolutionised special effects and SF space combat.  You listen to CR talk, and it pumps you up.  You want to play these ideas he has.  It made for a perfect Kickstarter.

But left on his own, as head of a project, there's nothing to keep those ideas in check.  Roberts doesn't know how to say "that's a bad idea" or "that's good enough, we should stop".  It's always got to be bigger and better.  As marketing, it works stupidly well.  But for actual game development, it needs to be moderated.  Roberts is the exact kind of person who needs a publisher there to control him.  It's obvious that the reason he doesn't like publishers is because they force him to make compromises he doesn't want to make.  But you need compromises to have a game that'll release.  You need a point where you can say "that's enough, this is the game", and you need to know exactly where that point is when you start.  CR has pushed that point further and further away in order to add more features, and it's gotten out of control.

In Todd Howard's* words: you can do anything, but you can't do everything.  And say what you want about Bethesda games, but they release on time and on budget, and are generally pretty solid.


What Roberts needs to to do is to stop.  He needs to think very carefully about what he wants in Star Citizen, and what can wait for a content pack or expansion.  I'd say that the FPS combat and planetary exploration parts are firmly in the latter category.  As is half the ship list.

But he can't do that either, can he?  He raised 85 million dollars based on all these promises he made, and cutting features would piss a lot of people off, even if they just spent 30$.  Because with a common pool like this, suddenly it's the community's money, and that's a lot their paid for a hybrid sim and FPS game.

And that's not a choice I think he's likely to make.  I don't think he'll compromise his vision and risk the wrath of his insanely fanatical fanbase in the name of practicality and common sense.


*Game Director and Executive Producer at Bethesda, in case you don't know

[Phantom Hoover]

Elite: Dangerous is honestly pretty shallow and while not a bad game, it can get repetitive fast. It is more like Arena Commander or FPS module in terms of complexity rather than Star Citizen itself.

While E:D is far more complex than SC's modules, you're right that it is a lot less complex than the eventual ambitions of Star Citizen. There's a lesson in this: Frontier went simple and built on their design from there. They were able to release a far more complete product than anything CIG have come out with within two years. CIG decided to design a giant top-down cluster**** of systems shackled to fanwank expectations, and they've yet to produce even a functional flight sim.

[666maslo666]

That's not the point. You're right, E:D is a bit shallow, but it is getting deeper with every major update and most importantly, it's released and people are playing it right now.
Compare that to Arena Commander: Last I checked, there were something like 4 playable ships on three maps in 4 game modes. That is after it has been out for a year.

There are 9 playable ships, most of them with additional variants, and six game modes now. Elite Dangerous has 20 flyable ships, which is on the same order as SC. And those Elite ships are less detailed than SC ones. Moreover, Arena Commander does not pretend to be a finished game at all, unlike Elite, but only a part of the whole.

This is not happening by the end of the year in any meaningful capacity, here's why and what you fail to understand about game development:

    The FPS segment of Starcitizen and the space combat of Star Citizen are both effectively two different games that need to be merged.

I see no reason why at least core game mechanics shouldnt be playable by the end of the year. That is, integrating FPS and space combat is challenging but perfectly doable with resources SC has. You can already get out of your ship and walk around it in Arena Commander, even tough it is a bit buggy. Moreover, this was the aim of SC from the start, it is not bloat or feature creep at all, it is a core feature.

You people are just not patient enough and expect a constant stream of goodies, but that is not always possible during development. Original SC release was by the end of 2015. Considering how ambitious it is, it is not unreasonable to expect a year or two of delay. So, SC has until the end of 2017 to live up to my expectations. If it doesnt by then, I will become concerned, but not before.

[The E]

I see no reason why at least core game mechanics shouldnt be playable by the end of the year. That is, integrating FPS and space combat is challenging but perfectly doable with resources SC has. You can already get out of your ship and walk around it in Arena Commander, even tough it is a bit buggy. Moreover, this was the aim of SC from the start, it is not bloat or feature creep at all, it is a core feature.

You may see no reason, but I do. That sort of gameplay transition is a standard thing. Bloody Halo did it, god knows how many years ago. It's a solved problem, as much as anything in gamedev is.

That it is buggy should tell you something.

You people are just not patient enough and expect a constant stream of goodies, but that is not always possible during development. Original SC release was by the end of 2015. Considering how ambitious it is, it is not unreasonable to expect a year or two of delay. So, SC has until the end of 2017 to live up to my expectations. If it doesnt by then, I will become concerned, but not before.

SC has been in development since 2012. By the original development timeline, we should have had the so-called Planetside update, the FPS/Boarding thing, and an alpha version of the Squadron 42 singleplayer campaign online by now. We do not. All we have is Arena Commander.
Missing deadlines is a thing, especially on ambitious projects. I think everyone who originally bought into SC understood that. But the thing is that, and I mentioned this earlier in this thread, CIG is terrible about communicating the state of the project. Every week, we get mostly content-free updates from them, updates that do not do much to answer important questions about the game (Aesaar found this post on the RSI forums that, AFAIK, has not received any response yet. Look at it closely, and ask yourself why we do not know any of these incredibly fundamental things about the game).

It is not a matter of not having patience. It's a matter of not having confidence, and the various high-profile departures from CIG over the past few months and CIG's communications issues do not inspire any.

[Phantom Hoover]

And those Elite ships are less detailed than SC ones.

The Elite ships are finished. The Elite ships are released. The Elite ships are fun to fly. I'd say that more than makes up for them not having modelled toilets.

[Aesaar]

I see no reason why at least core game mechanics shouldnt be playable by the end of the year. That is, integrating FPS and space combat is challenging but perfectly doable with resources SC has. You can already get out of your ship and walk around it in Arena Commander, even tough it is a bit buggy. Moreover, this was the aim of SC from the start, it is not bloat or feature creep at all, it is a core feature.

It's not going to happen by the end of the year because they don't even have a standalone shooter ready yet, and have no ETA until they do. 

And even once it's ready, they'll have three separate things: Arena Commander (for shooting at ships with your ship), Star Marine (for shooting at people), and the Hangar Module (for walking around and inside the ships).  It's delusional to think finishing the FPS and unifying all these modules will be a 6 month affair.  Especially given that CryEngine is an FPS engine and CIG still haven't managed to make a standalone corridor shooter out of it yet.

You people are just not patient enough and expect a constant stream of goodies, but that is not always possible during development. Original SC release was by the end of 2015. Considering how ambitious it is, it is not unreasonable to expect a year or two of delay. So, SC has until the end of 2017 to live up to my expectations. If it doesnt by then, I will become concerned, but not before.

I don't expect a constant stream of goodies.  I expect a bit of substance.  Three years in, and CIG has delivered a mediocre dogfight game which still isn't representative of the gameplay they want, according to CIG themselves.  They have delivered nothing else.  Not even good information.  Here's a list of questions someone posted over in Ben Lesnick's "everything is fine, there are no American tanks in Baghdad" megathread:

CR mentioned that there are three types of gameplay planned: solo, small group, and large group. How does large group play work? Where do they fight, what do they fight over, how do they fight? How are those groups managed? How does conflict work when the organizations exceed the capacity of a single instance? How will NPC groups like the UEE interact with large orgs, particularly if an org becomes particularly powerful?

How does one control a station? What are the benefits of controlling that station? How does one prevent others from using that station, and how do others take control from the owner? How long does that take to occur? How big of a conflict is it? Can stations be upgraded, if so to what extent?

How do I fly from point A to point B? We know of an auto-pilot mechanic and we've seen a q-drive animation, but that's it. How will sensors work outside of an instance? What can I see? What can't I see? How do the instancing mechanics and sensor mechanics work together so I can intercept someone? If we're both going 0.2c can I even intercept someone if I'm behind them? Do I have to follow nav points or can I just freely fly from point to point? How do players ambush each other?

How does one find a jump point? How does one explore a planet or other unknown area? Is an instance dynamically generated for me to walk around? How big is it? How much can I see? What can I do? How much fresh content is there, and how much repetition? How often will new jump points be generated? How will players even know when to look for a jump point, and when they're wasting their time?

How big is a solar system? What is it equivalent to in terms of content? How many locations are there? How many players is a single system designed to hold? How long will it take to cross a system (we've heard multiple values)?

What percentage of the universe is divided between lawless and lawful space? What happens if I commit a crime in lawless space, how does that affect my reputation in lawful space? What resources will be available in lawless space that can't be obtained anywhere? How will CIG encourage PvP in lawless space since it's supposed to be the "no holds barred" super risky area equivalent to Demon Souls in terms of difficulty?

How are ships supposed to fly in terms of their feel? Is the current implementation of Arena Commander how they're envisioned? How is a multi-crew ship different from a small ship? How long is combat between two equal ships supposed to take? What role will missiles play, and is the current implementation how it's envisioned? What will guns be differentiated from each other so I might want a repeater for one scenario and a mass driver for another?

How will Star Citizen become controller agnostic?

What is the expected feel of FPS? Is it supposed to be short and brutal? If so, how will FPS gameplay be encouraged if death is supposed to be meaningful?

How will a player return to the game after death, and what will the penalty of death actually be in terms of time and asset loss? How will CIG make death a meaningful penalty while still encouraging risky gameplay? If the mechanic involves a pilot being "rescued" how will that work? If I "kill" a pilot and he's rescued, does that mean he has a record of me attacking him? What is the difference in penalty between being rescued and dying such that you play your next of kin?

How will two capital ships fight? Will they share an instance, or will the distances be such that they effectively fight across instances? How many players will be expected to pilot a capital ship? What is the benefit of having a crew station manned by a PC versus a NPC? Since capital ships are always persistent within the game universe, what happens when nobody from an organization is available to man it?

To what extent will players be required to visit store after store as opposed to just getting what they want over the local equivalent of the Internet? How often will I run into someone who doesn't own the place but has an arrangement with the people who do? How will planetside interaction be engaging and fun instead of a chore like it is with most games?

How many characters can I have per account? Is there any way for me to find out if one character shares the same account as another? What exactly does a "NPC slot" entail and what are the benefits of having it?

How are crimes recorded? How far does a record of a crime propagate? Is a record limited to a system, region, entire Empire? How does a player pay for his crimes? How does jail work? How does being captured by a bounty hunter work? What about enslaving another player?

How does fuel work? How big of a role will fuel play within the game? Will there be multiple types of fuel? How far is a ship expected to be able to travel before refueling? What happens if a ship runs out of fuel, can they be trapped? How does a ship scoop fuel from a gas giant? Will fuel be a meaningful resource with scarcity (particularly in the lawless regions), or will it be something similar to Elite where it's more of an inconvenience?

How will instances actually work? What are the parameters for matchmaking, and are there places the matchmaker is less likely to work than others? What will prevent an instance from exceeding capacity? What will the players see when that happens? How big is the capacity of an instance, and what determines that capacity? Is it possible to "break" an instance by (for example) having all of your crew jump out of an airlock?

How many hours of gameplay will it take to earn an Aurora? Avenger? Cutlass? Super Hornet? Constellation? Reclaimer? Idris?

How does salvage work? How are components extracted? What are the legalities of salvage? Will wrecks persist once an instance is empty, so that I can pop a ship and then bring in my buddies to take it?

What will be done to ensure that gameplay is meaningful and engaging, particularly for multi-crew play? Why would someone want to be the missile loader after they've done it the first time?

How will repairing your ship work? What level of skill will be involved, or will it be similar to the healing gun for the FPS? How long will repairs take?

How will piracy work? How do I find a prize? How do I get them to dump their cargo? If they resist, how do I ensure their cargo stays intact while we fight?

How does the modularity system work? To what extent can I change the functionality of a ship? We know of cargo pods and modules being inserted, but not of what they'll do or what the benefits are.

How does the painting system work? How much can I customize the appearance of my ship? Can I get a custom logo for my organization? What's the process for getting that logo into the game?

How much will insurance cost? How long will it take for me to get a ship back through insurance? Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks?

How is inventory managed? How will I see what my person has on them? How do I put on armor or store a weapon? How long does it take to put on a suit, for example if there's a hole in my ship and I'm losing oxygen? If I shoot someone is there any limitation on what I can take from their body?

How are credits managed? Is it possible to steal credits from someone else? Are there physical representations of credits, or is it entirely electronic? How do alien entities handle UEE currency? What about pirates?

How does ship armor work?

How does life support work? Am I limited by the number of crew I can carry? Will I run out of oxygen if I have too many people? What about air breathing cargo? Can I carry cows, and if so do I need to upgrade my life support system to accommodate them?

These are questions about the fundamental gameplay mechanics, something CIG has remained very tight-lipped about.  They're not easy questions, but they're insanely important.  CIG's lack of communication about these matters is extremely telling.  The Kickstarter was three years ago.  These questions should have had answers long before now. 

Don't tell me we aren't patient enough.  Three years, and we still don't have any concrete information about how the game is supposed to play.  All we have are vague promises.


EDIT: The_E beat me to it.