Why should they waste time making 2 different engines, when PU engine needs to be made anyway? Just so they can release SQ42 sooner, at the cost of releasing PU even later? How would that be better? They would just waste development time for no good reason whatsoever. Squadron 42 is standalone because you play it separately from the PU, thats all. You are reading too much into what Sandy said if you think she meant something deeper than that. It is not standalone when it comes to engine and assets, it shares a ton of that with PU.
"How would releasing a game help with the perception that they're never going to release a game?"
Take your time figuring that one out.
Actually, let me walk you through it, since you obviously need the help: Nearly all of the things you need to get SQ42 done, you're going to need for the PU as well. That ranges from core gameplay mechanics (like flight models, ship FPS, and customization), to a few civilian, military, and alien ship models. So you get that done first. Then you release act 1 of SQ42 as proof that, hey, we can actually make a fun game! You perfect that, then you work on the **** you need for the PU, like netcode, economy, quests, star systems. You start with a relatively modest, small-scale game that you can reliably deliver in a couple of years, then you move on to the big stuff. If they'd done that, we'd be playing SQ42 by now, because SQ42 isn't that complex a game. It should have come out long before what we see in 2.0.
Instead they're developing everything at once. The PU isn't going to come any faster, since SQ42 work isn't wasted either way, but because of unnecessary PU ****, SQ42 is getting delayed just like all their tech demo modules.
Have you even considered that they actually never thought the models meet the final standards (after all, they were pretty ugly), and planned from the start to iteratively improve them - improving them in multiple incremental passes over time, as the engine gains features and modelers gain experience with the workflow?
For this kind of development, there's no meaningful difference, except that your suggestion makes them look like morons. And yeah, what The_E said.
You can make WIP missions that are only roughly balanced and then balance them well before shipping. Such detailed balance testing comes late in the development, when all the gameplay is pinned down. Not when the flight model is still evolving.
If you haven't figured out your core gameplay, you can storyboard missions. That's pretty much the extent of what you can do.
Well, unless you're making a movie, in which case you can make nothing but 4 point patrols with 30 minutes of mocap cinematics in between.
But like The_E says, **** like the flight model and ship customization is at the very heart of the game. They're the most important gameplay systems. It should be pinned down by now. It should have been pinned down last year. They should absolutely be able to give very specific information about how you'll be able to customize your ship, not the same vague bull**** they were giving out 3 years ago.
The_E: they're 4 years into development. It started in December 2011, by CR's own admission.
You know that in Freespace you can press one button (afterburner), and your ship goes from 0 to almost max speed in a fraction of a second? SC does not have anymore agile fighters than Freespace - Aurora or Hornet already handles well and they weigh exactly as they should. Only bigger ships are too agile, and fixing that requires a simple mass increase, not reworking a whole flight model. I dont know if you have noticed, but in SC all the bigger ships are very underweight, because someone early in development just made up their weights by comparing their lengths, while in reality weight scales with length cubed. This doesnt matter yet because masses of bigger ships will all be changed down the road during balancing anyway.
Key word here being afterburner. And that's really something. You're comparing SC ships to Freespace ones, and the only way Freespace ones feel comparable is if you bring up afterburner acceleration. But yeah, you're right, SC ships feel like they have Freespace afterburners, except in every direction and not just when afterburning. I'm glad we agree.
Wow, that groundbreaking "realistic" flight model was really worth it. I guess it's groundbreaking to make a really complex system so you don't have to cheat, but then end up needing to cheat and the results are worse than if you hadn't bothered at all.
Actually that summarizes a lot of things in SC. Applies to their animation/headbobbing too.
A new company, heavily modified game engine AND a full game? Or an established studio reusing a prior game engine? Game like SC is harder to make than Witcher 3 or Elite, so of course it is going to take longer. Around 5 years, Id say. Thats 2017-2018 release. You are just being impatient, IMHO.
Right, those games had premade engines. Unlike Cryengine. CIG made that from scratch, right?
"Game like SC is harder to make than Witcher 3 or Elite" Er, why? I mean, I can see why a game would be harder to make if your management is incompetent, but I don't think that's what you mean.
And CR has been harping on about his past games for the entire development. You've pointed to them as well. You don't get to say "I have faith in CR because of his past games" and then "CIG aren't an established studio, so that's why they should be measured by a different standard than everyone else". Either they know what they're doing or they don't. Pick one.
5 years is next year, not 2017-2018. This game started development in December 2011. If you want to claim development only began after the Kickstarter, then Elite Dangerous started development in December 2012.
But yeah, I guess I'm impatient. Must have been spoiled by all those games that release within a few months of their projected release dates. Good thing Chris Roberts is here to show me that real game development is all about missing deadlines, not pinning down core gameplay systems, and selling 400$ jpegs. This must be what people mean when they talk about how revolutionary SC is.