[Megathread] Star Citizen

[masterhorus8]

Oh come off it. Almost nobody in this thread is harassing the devs or insulting them. The posters I see the most are critical of the game's development process and design decisions which is more than perfectly fair. I'm sure there are people who are toxic around Star Citizen but this thread is not an example and you don't get to lump all critics of the title under one umbrella to spare your feels.

Not the harassment part, the armchair dev part. Same results. People that don't know what they're talking about criticizing stuff that they don't understand. It's like you latched onto one part and didn't read the rest of it and only found the one bit to bitch about. Nothing new in here.

[Jastall]

Not the harassment part, the armchair dev part. Same results. People that don't know what they're talking about criticizing stuff that they don't understand.

I'm sure we're all just too stupid to understand that a game being in pre-Alpha after more than 5-6 years of development, countless schedule slips, feature bloat and 150 millions thrown at them is perfectly normal.

[stellvia]

masterhorus: Now I'm curious which twitter/forum thread he was talking about that was talking about game design.

I'm sure we're all just too stupid to understand that a game being in pre-Alpha after more than 5-6 years of development, countless schedule slips, feature bloat and 150 millions thrown at them is perfectly normal.

I'm pissing into the wind right now, but you should realize "schedule slips" during internal development is not the same thing as release date slipping. Every game development is going to hit snags along the way and all of those are going to cause "schedule slips". The only difference is most developers don't give a tentative release date until much later, and many of them will cut corners to meet a release window and make up for it in patches later.

[Edge-]

I'm pissing into the wind right now, but you should realize "schedule slips" during internal development is not the same thing as release date slipping. Every game development is going to hit snags along the way and all of those are going to cause "schedule slips". The only difference is most developers don't give a tentative release date until much later, and many of them will cut corners to meet a release window and make up for it in patches later.

This is true, but repeated "milestone" misses (since these are functionally the same as internal milestones), especially when they're missing major milestones by upwards of a year, are kinda big. That isn't normal in the slightest, the only places something like that can happen are studios like Blizzard where they can afford to dump ludicrous amounts of money into games (like what happened with Titan becoming Overwatch).

This kind of thing would have their publisher/investors breathing down their necks so hard that they'd likely be getting air in their small intestines. No publisher or investors would tolerate these kinds of delays.

Let's not try to pretend like this is all normal development.

[masterhorus8]

masterhorus: Now I'm curious which twitter/forum thread he was talking about that was talking about game design.

After some digging, it seems that the Steam thread that was being referred to in the tweet(s) was most likely related to NMS, as that's what it seems the name of the poster plays/talks about the most. Felt super creeper status digging through a random person's post history though...

[Lagwin]

After some digging, it seems that the Steam thread that was being referred to in the tweet(s) was most likely related to NMS, as that's what it seems the name of the poster plays/talks about the most. Felt super creeper status digging through a random person's post history though...

"Being lied to" is key to that assumption...it IS what NMS haters where dribbling on about after launch.

[MrAnderson]

Let's not try to pretend like this is all normal development.

Yes, it really is normal game development. Whenever you try new mechanics it involves new tech, made from scratch. How long will it take to make something that was never made? After it was made, will it work as intended? Will it be fun along with everything else?

Those questions and many more make it impossible to predict things and delays happen, even with time buffers you can never get it right when you are walking uncharted areas.

The only difference is that the publicly is more aware of what's being done because it was announced so early. That's why it looks it takes more time compared with other titles that we only know late in development.

[Edge-]

Yes, it really is normal game development. Whenever you try new mechanics it involves new tech, made from scratch. How long will it take to make something that was never made? After it was made, will it work as intended? Will it be fun along with everything else?

Those questions and many more make it impossible to predict things and delays happen, even with time buffers you can never get it right when you are walking uncharted areas.

The only difference is that the publicly is more aware of what's being done because it was announced so early. That's why it looks it takes more time compared with other titles that we only know late in development.

It's not normal for any game I've ever worked on (which range in scope from small 1-2 man indie affairs to larger AAA affairs, from single player games to MMO's). Some of them have tried some super ambitious stuff too (using peripherals to do things in-game with your brain. I'm not kidding, fucking watching someone cast spells in-game without touching a thing and just thinking about the spell they want to cast), and while delays happen (one game I worked on for a while ended up getting delayed for damn near 2 years), I can't say I've seen anything on this scale.

When the features a developer wants to put in a game are constantly being scaled back in their initial implementation and are constantly causing delays of upwards of a year, most publishers/investors would demand that the developer either figures out how to address the issue or cuts features to stay on budget and within the timelines. They don't have black checks like the SC community is essentially providing CIG with, all without the same kind of accountability and oversight that publishers/investors routinely have.

[MrAnderson]

It's not normal for any game I've ever worked on (which range in scope from small 1-2 man indie affairs to larger AAA affairs, from single player games to MMO's). Some of them have tried some super ambitious stuff too (using peripherals to do things in-game with your brain. I'm not kidding, fucking watching someone cast spells in-game without touching a thing and just thinking about the spell they want to cast), and while delays happen (one game I worked on for a while ended up getting delayed for damn near 2 years), I can't say I've seen anything on this scale.

When the features a developer wants to put in a game are constantly being scaled back in their initial implementation and are constantly causing delays of upwards of a year, most publishers/investors would demand that the developer either figures out how to address the issue or cuts features to stay on budget and within the timelines. They don't have black checks like the SC community is essentially providing CIG with, all without the same kind of accountability and oversight that publishers/investors routinely have.

The thing is that you are ignoring the Crowdfunding aspect of it and the need to scale the development according to the increase funding gotten. You are probably also missing the fact that they had no studio or staff prior to that funding.

Those are all things that add up in time and cost of the project. Also you probably never had to report weekly to the fans on what you were working on, you also didn't need to produce 2 fan-shows every year and so on and on. You also didn't had to make a Single-Player game at the same time you did the MMORPG one. Everything adds up. It's easy to understand if you see the big picture instead of focusing on "delays".

CIG is independent they don't need to make compromises to make a "date" for the sake of marketing/publishers.

[Jastall]

masterhorus: Now I'm curious which twitter/forum thread he was talking about that was talking about game design.



I'm pissing into the wind right now, but you should realize "schedule slips" during internal development is not the same thing as release date slipping. Every game development is going to hit snags along the way and all of those are going to cause "schedule slips". The only difference is most developers don't give a tentative release date until much later, and many of them will cut corners to meet a release window and make up for it in patches later.

There's that, and then there's the project's lead going on stage saying they'll have a major release ready within months and you later learn his team had barely even begun working on said release. Optimistic timetables are one thing, it happens in any project, but that would be like me going to my boss and telling him I can have an important contract done in 3 months when I haven't even begun negotiating with any partners. It would be foolish and reckless and I'd be lucky if he keeps me after that sort of stunt.

I feel that the entire space sim genre runs a lot on hype. Elite: Dangerous was an exception, and even it took some time to be up to snuff I found. NMS was a boring trainwreck on release, with an intentionally vague marketing campaign that promised the universe when the only real gameplay was pointing your laser at rocks. Star Citizen isn't going to actually be released for several years now, what I've seen of its actual gameplay is unimpressive, and it survives partly with bullshit microtransactions that aren't micro at all in some cases. Sure, it looks pretty, but that's hardly enough for me to be impressed these days.

And I get the feeling CiG knows this and want this hype to keep going; it's how they make their money. Hype keeps the backers coming, keeps people buying these ludicrously overpriced ships that will ''be free'' on release. The longer it goes, the longer they make bank without actually finishing their shit. It's the darker flipside of crowdfunding.

I dunno. E: D sorta hooked me, then the genre has let me down very, very hard.

[KyrtF]

Not the harassment part, the armchair dev part. Same results. People that don't know what they're talking about criticizing stuff that they don't understand. It's like you latched onto one part and didn't read the rest of it and only found the one bit to bitch about. Nothing new in here.

You do realise there are game devs which are openly critical about how SC is being developed? Not "armchair devs" but professionals

Not to mention that it doesn't take a lot to realise that a game which has had almost seven years of development, $110 million spent and is being worked on by a team of alnost 400 SHOULD have a lot more to show than a handful of tech demos.

It should at least be moving out of the Alpha stage instead of being stuck in preAlpha.

[Edge-]

The thing is that you are ignoring the Crowdfunding aspect of it and the need to scale the development according to the increase funding gotten. You are probably also missing the fact that they had no studio or staff prior to that funding.

I'm not in the slightest. Continually adding on features and systems because people throw more money at you leads to what folks are usually concerned about - feature creep/bloat causing endless delays.

They don't have to keep adding, just as they don't have to keep creating more ships to sell.

I haven't ignored anything. It being a crowdfunded game and their voluntary decision to continually raise funds and expand the scope of the game is purely a voluntary choice on CIG. They don't have to do either, and can hunker down and focus on the core game instead, simply reinvesting the additional funds into making sure that their core game is going to be as good as possible.

Those are all things that add up in time and cost of the project. Also you probably never had to report weekly to the fans on what you were working on, you also didn't need to produce 2 fan-shows every year and so on and on. You also didn't had to make a Single-Player game at the same time you did the MMORPG one. Everything adds up. It's easy to understand if you see the big picture instead of focusing on "delays".

Weekly, no. But monthly to investors? Yep. CIG doesn't need to provide weekly updates, either. They could easily do monthly "big" updates and then intermittent smaller, more informal updates in between. I think a weekly cadence is overkill, and I'm a big advocate for transparency.

I get the complexity of creating two different types of games simultaneously (MMO and single player), but that doesn't explain much. The delays are due to integrating the two, which is where you'd imagine that they would arise. The delays are for each respective have being finished, period. That complexity you bring up hasn't even really come into play in a big way yet.

CIG is independent they don't need to make compromises to make a "date" for the sake of marketing/publishers.

You're right, they've got an army of fans who are happy to continue to throw money at them despite missing self imposed deadline after self imposed deadline. Who are happy to listen to Roberts say he's sick and tired of giving dates (poor Roberts!) only to turn around and give dates within days of making that statement.

I don't want SC to fail. But this has been a wild ride, and most of what you see going on with the development of SC wouldn't fly at any other studio period, either funded by a publisher or funded by private investment. I'm just tired of seeing folks pretend like anything about this games development is normal and that any critiques/expressed concerns are some how proof of "haters" who just want to see the game fail/don't know anything. That may be true for some folks, but that's not remotely universal in the slightest.

And making those "dates" isn't just for "marketing/publishers", especially since most of the milestones in a games development have nothing to do with marketing and comes well before pre-launch, at most it simply impacts marketing timelines for the longterm planning. It's also a sign of a teams ability to accurately and effectively predict workloads and timelines, and meet those estimated dates. If they're regularly failing to do so, and by upwards of a year, then backers should be asking very seriously questions about why that's happening. Where's the broken link in the chain of project management? Is it managers setting overly aggressive schedules? Lower/mid-level people being unable to meet deadlines? Unrealistic expectations across the board? What?

[KyrtF]

Yes, it really is normal game development. Whenever you try new mechanics it involves new tech, made from scratch. How long will it take to make something that was never made? After it was made, will it work as intended? Will it be fun along with everything else?

Those questions and many more make it impossible to predict things and delays happen, even with time buffers you can never get it right when you are walking uncharted areas.

The only difference is that the publicly is more aware of what's being done because it was announced so early. That's why it looks it takes more time compared with other titles that we only know late in development.

Delays are normal development.
Delays of ten months however...are not. We aren't talking about days or even weeks...but months.

That is NOT normal game develooment.

Nor is being nearly seven years into the games development and still not having a fully working engine, flight model or netcode. ALL of which are core foundational systems which should have been developed and locked down years ago, because they all impact on many other aspects of the game.

Nor is working on major game assets in the preAlpha normal game development. CIG is now having to redo a lot of work because these assets are having compatibility problems given the ever changing engine.

Hyping up advanced cosmetic features before the core systems needed to support them are finished is also not normal for game development. CIG shouldn't really be promising features such as FOIP or VOIP until it knows for sure what its netcode can support...but it won't know that until its added to the game in 3.1.

Delays are indeed normal. But much of what CIG is doing is NOT normal. Nowhere near normal

I will also point out that nothing of what CIG is doing is new or groundbreaking. Some if the features they have hyped up are decades old technology. Even FOIP isn't new. It's been in games since at least 2013 if not before. It isn't common...games usually have better things to spend CPU cycles and bandwidth on...but it isn't new.

So before you make excuses for them, you should understand that they are doing nothing new...nothing groundbreaking...everything they want to do has been done before...and these waters are far from uncharted.

We also have a good idea of the development time for other AAA titles.

Start to finish, its about 4-5 years.

Star Citizen approaching year 7 of its development, with no release in sight, with no finished engine, flight model or netcode, with no basic gameplay mechanics and the game firmly stuck in preAlpha for at least another year until 4.0 is released...

that isn't normal by any stretch.

- - - Updated - - -

The thing is that you are ignoring the Crowdfunding aspect of it and the need to scale the development according to the increase funding gotten. You are probably also missing the fact that they had no studio or staff prior to that funding.

Rubbish.

There neither is nor was any need to "scale" development. Chris Roberts simply used the windfall to scrap the game he was working on to start development on another. The so-called "need" is a choice.

And no....he does NOT get a pass because of the myth he had to build a studio. First...he HAD a studio before he went to Kickstarter. He was already developing SC but publishers weren't interested. Second...he hired a good few third party devs to do the work he wasn't prepared for.

So...no. He had staff. He had devs. He had them before day one and he got a lot more very quickly by hiring entire dev teams. Of course, because he didn't keep those third parties updated on the engine changes, he effectively burnt that money because their work couldn't be used.

Actually, he'd have been better off burning the money because he also wasted two years or so of development time.

[stellvia]

Let's not try to pretend like this is all normal development.

That wasn't my intention. I agree that the delays have been significantly longer than I would like, but his insinuation seemed to be that any time of schedule delays weren't something you would see normally in development, so I wanted to point out these internal timetables aren't the same type of dates as something marketing releases when beta is about to start.

[KyrtF]

That wasn't my intention. I agree that the delays have been significantly longer than I would like, but his insinuation seemed to be that any time of schedule delays weren't something you would see normally in development, so I wanted to point out these internal timetables aren't the same type of dates as something marketing releases when beta is about to start.

Given that CIG are using these to drum up interest, to hype up the game...that they are indeed used for marketing and PR...I don't really see much of a difference.

As stated, even internal schedules need to have a degree of accuracy and meaning.

That the ones we have been given do not indicates that they are false or PR stunts or that there is something wrong with project management on Star Citizen.

Its certainly not normal nor is it good. If nothing else, that CIG continually underestimate the amount of time and money needed to get a patch working, to the point their best bugsmashing methodology is shift it to a later patch, we have to wonder how realistic the schdules and costs for the full game are.

The information we have from CIGs finacial releases suggest, for example, a spend of about $110 million and a buffer of about $40 million to finish both S42 and SC.

For both games, they need to finalise the engine and flight model and add in new netcode. Both need content and SC requires game mechanics for tasks such as salvaging and trade as well. There are marketing costs...publishing costs...hosting costs. And looking at the recent fundraising data, it suggests that that buffer will also need to cover the shortfall in funding.

Add that to the problems CIG has meeting targets. CR said CIG has enough to fund S42 to completion...but missed dates means more money spent means less money to develop the rest of the game. CR also said the game was fully funded at about $65 million and again..IIRC...at about $100 million.

All of this seems to agree with the assertion that CIG are running out of money, and may not have enough to finish the game, never mind market it or pay for hosting, unless funding either picks up or they start cutting planned features.

[Majestic12]

I'm just going to leave this here because this thread is a prime example of this garbage-tier stupidity.

https://imgur.com/gallery/ziSkg

- - - Updated - - -



Plus, you do know that that picture was a render and not from the actual game, right? "lmfao"

Doesn't matter. I'm talking about what Citizens are talking about and getting excited about. That snow picture was all over the sub. It's prime example of how stuck SC backers are in time. It's content that's made only to generate "teh feelz" and it's what has been fueling SC for too long. That and peoples' own imaginations.

You can tell that SC is in a bad spot when people never can get along about what SC is after 5+ years of development. To be fair, CIG has said so many things and let peoples' imaginations fill the gaps. SC just won't be a good game at this point and it's all thanks to Chris Roberts.

[MrAnderson]

Doesn't matter. I'm talking about what Citizens are talking about and getting excited about. That snow picture was all over the sub. It's prime example of how stuck SC backers are in time. It's content that's made only to generate "teh feelz" and it's what has been fueling SC for too long. That and peoples' own imaginations.

You can tell that SC is in a bad spot when people never can get along about what SC is after 5+ years of development. To be fair, CIG has said so many things and let peoples' imaginations fill the gaps. SC just won't be a good game at this point and it's all thanks to Chris Roberts.

You can tell SC is in a great spot when the haters spend more time talking about it than it's backers. The fixation with Star Citizen, CIG and Chris Roberts from people that seem to dislike it so much is really endearing albeit a bit strange or plain miserable, or both I guess.

Anyone that thinks they have any chance of collapsing is living in lalaland. Anyone thinking that 3.0 won't bring a couple million more of gamers and millions is living in denial. There's no stopping this games development because it's exactly what's missing from the gaming scene.

It's just a matter of time that even the most ardent "naysayers" eventually go mute and spend their time having fun crashing their auroras instead of spilling petty negativism and cynicism around the world wide web.

[Eleccybubb]

-snip-

Yeah Yeah we know..... Game is best thing since sliced bread, it's gonna light the gaming world on fire etc etc etc. Because other than the official forums which to me looks like the usual gathering of people rushing to defend this game. Where is the hype for 3.0? Where are people talking about how excited they are for this game? Oh wait how can you talk about something that is consistently delayed.

Well first it actually has to stop delaying major release dates to do so. Maybe someday it will stop doing that and actually release 3.0. Although there is more chance of me competing in the Olympics at this rate.

You have any hard numbers to present that 3.0 will bring in "millions"? Don't make claims as bold as that without anything to back up your made up numbers.

Nothing to do with naysaying. The project has been in development for so long even the backers are starting to get agitated. But god forbid people are so annoyed now their criticism turns into frustration right? God forbid someone doesn't think the game you and a few others here are rushing over to vehemently defend isn't all sunshine and rainbows or the best thing to come to the gaming scene.

But it's ok. Keep saying this game is the best thing since sliced bread. Easy to tell where your stance is on this game. And you have the gall to call people out on being on one side of the spectrum here yet you are doing the exact same thing on the opposite end of the spectrum. The irony is amusing to say the least.

All I see posted across a lot of message boards is frustration with the game. If anything those rushing to vehemently defend it look to be in a minority. Hell I see backers with buyers remorse and I can't blame them. I feel bad for them in a way.

Right now there are 3 outcomes for this game. Development limbo where they keep saying we will see 3.0 and delaying it consistently, it finally comes out and was overhyped to hell which to be honest it really does seem to be right now or it comes out and does light the gaming world on fire.

But if 3.0 or Squadron 42 do come out in 2017 I will happily come back to this thread and admit I was wrong. Always willing to admit when I'm wrong.

And no. If more people are being critical of a game than positive then that does not mean the game is in a good spot at all. But keep grasping at straws there like you did with the whole "this game is what is missing from the scene" argument. Nowhere near in the ballpark with a statement like that.

If you are up for a discussion feel free to let me know. I'll only respond to you once because I believe everyone is worth the benefit of the doubt.

[masterhorus8]

Well first it actually has to stop delaying major release dates to do so. Maybe someday it will stop doing that and actually release 3.0. Although there is more chance of me competing in the Olympics at this rate.

3.0 is in the hands of the NDA Evocati as of an hour ago. How's the Olympic trials going for you? (Tongue-in-cheek, not being serious. Just a sass way of saying 3.0 is "out".)

[Eleccybubb]

3.0 is in the hands of the NDA Evocati as of an hour ago. How's the Olympic trials going for you?

I broke my back trying to do a high jump....

Link me the NDA thing so I can take a gander.