[Megathread] Star Citizen

[stormgust]

I did; see the above chart.

That chart does not define where Star Citizen aims to be in terms of scope relative to the other games listed. Squadron 42 equals a full budget triple A single player title, persistent universe seems to be aimed at a triple A MMO. They have budget's on the upper and of the former, lower end of the later. That's not even accounting for all the FPS moduls, and the core work required to merge modules together.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

That chart does not define where Star Citizen aims to be in terms of scope relative to the other games listed. Squadron 42 equals a full budget triple A single player title, persistent universe seems to be aimed at a triple A MMO. They have budget's on the upper and of the former, lower end of the later. That's not even accounting for all the FPS moduls, and the core work required to merge modules together.

Now that you have finally defined what you were asking, I shall answer.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/project-status
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

Chris Roberts has already acknowledged that the 90 million in funds they have right now won't be enough to finish new vision. That is why they are focusing on the core modules first, so that if - for whatever reason - funding stopped coming in tomorrow, that they'd be able to at least finish what they promised during the original kickstarter campaign years ago.

[stormgust]

Now that you have finally defined what you were asking, I shall answer.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/project-status
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

Chris Roberts has already acknowledged that the 90 million in funds they have right now won't be enough to finish new vision. That is why they are focusing on the core modules first, so that if - for whatever reason - funding stopped coming in tomorrow, that they'd be able to at least finish what they promised during the original kickstarter campaign years ago.

That's the very definition of a ponzi scheme though, just that there's still the risk that their budget won't even be able to finish the original planned modules. SQ42 and persistent universe = SWTOR+GTA5 more or less - they currently have 1/5 of the budget in crowfunds, and maybe the same as third party funds. Still missing 3/5 and the additional costs due to the immensely large scope.

Or to put it bluntly, Molyneux is a realist when compared to Chris Roberts.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

That's the very definition of a ponzi scheme though, just that there's still the risk that their budget won't even be able to finish the original planned modules.

They have the money to finish the originally planned modules. They currently don't to finish the post-kickstarter added modules, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

[SirRobin]

Wait, what happened? The escapist calls SC ever being launched into doubt or something? I may have my doubts about Chris and suspect this project may have become a nightmare to manage, but I'm sure Chris will get a game out the gate. I may not like it when it gets here but I have no doubts that it will get here.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Wait, what happened?

Zeta and his cronies came back to - as they always do - denounce doom upon Star Citizen, call the backers "blind, religious defenders", and smear Chris Roberts. Typical Zeta stuff, nothing we aren't already used to.

[SirRobin]

I found it.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/arti...of-the-Company

All I've got to say is "meh..." I like Chris and he may very well be in over his head but anyone who thinks SC will turn into duke nukem style vaporware is high. I have not contributed to SC because certain things just feel "off" to me. But I have no doubt that Chris will get a game on the shelves. It may not be as grandiose as he wants it to be but I have no doubts that there will be one.

[Rennadrel]

I found it.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/arti...of-the-Company

All I've got to say is "meh..." I like Chris and he may very well be in over his head but anyone who thinks SC will turn into duke nukem style vaporware is high. I have not contributed to SC because certain things just feel "off" to me. But I have no doubt that Chris will get a game on the shelves. It may not be as grandiose as he wants it to be but I have no doubts that there will be one.

If you were a creator and really wanted to make something truly unique as your last big hurrah? Would you not try and get as ambitious as possible? Obviously Chris saw the limit as to what his team has been capable of doing within a reasonable frame of time. Hence why they stopped the stretch goals, because he saw that the backers were getting them a little further over their heads and would make the game get dragged into development hell. As it stands, they are in development hell to some extent just because of all the delays, but as long as they keep working away at it, they will be fine.

[Omians]

Eh ill take the artical with a grain of salt. Being unnamed sorces. Could be just disgruntled workers. I mean if my job fired me and i was pissed off i could go to my towns news paper and spout out stuff at anyone that would report it saying " Ya at the jail we clean all the inmates dirty clothes in the boilers with the food to save money " which is not true lol

Maybe all thats reported could be true but i dont know really. I could trust it as much as i saw this one magazine that said " Obama is the 2nd cousin of Big foot. Photo evidence inside"

[SirRobin]

I'm not saying the "sources" are completely full of beans. We have plenty of examples of egos and less than professional behavior in far more than just the video games industry. But I think its a big stretch to go from the asshattery you can find in studios, and even industries, to the project being on the verge of imploding.

Chris will deliver. It may not be what some are expecting or fervently wishing for, it never is, but he'll still deliver something.

[Jimmy Thick]

Should have made another Wing Commander. This game will too ambitious and lose all the funding in the long run. I love Chris Roberts, the guy is a top notch game designer and pretty much created the whole space sim/cum space soap opera category, but this game looks like its starting to jump the shark.


Jimmy Thick- Can someone get Chris Jones aka Tex Murphy to save this game?

[Xentronium]

I remember complaints about Chris Roberts in magazines from back in the late 80s. When full motion video was a thing he seemed to get too far into it with Wing 2 and 3 and worried less about the gameplay. He did end up making that silly movie too. He's not of Peter Molyneux caliber but he does seem to come across as "games as art" and gameplay is second, kind of guy. But there are a lot of people like that in the industry.

Just got to wait it out and keep the faith I guess.

[Aberrict]

Zeta and his cronies came back to - as they always do - denounce doom upon Star Citizen, call the backers "blind, religious defenders", and smear Chris Roberts. Typical Zeta stuff, nothing we aren't already used to.

It's your own fault for not having Zeta on your ignore list

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It's your own fault for not having Zeta on your ignore list

I completely forgot it existed! Thank you for reminding me.

[stellvia]

IMHO at this point if anything will make SC being completed into doubt, it's the huge army of irrational FUD spammers that continue to spout the same crap over and over again. Even when a lot of it is only partially true, FUD, or outright debunked.

Must be the worst ponzi-scheme ever if the guy running it is flat-out telling you the funds on hand won't finish all the extended goals. Also, your whole "pay to win" ships thing was debunked numerous times—the vast majority of ships in the game fall into specialty niches, "luxury" that has no affect on gameplay, and the biggest point... you get essentially the base hull equipped with "rusty daggers" and "one tank of gas" ... a lot of these ships you're worried about won't even leave dock until people can support the logistics, maintenance, and fitting costs.

As far as CR being known for vaporware... what? He had development issues with 1-2 titles out of many he developed. All released. That kinda shit happens all the time in the industry, and usually turns out far worse. The difference here is that the vast majority of backers want the game done RIGHT. The game is ambitious and they've hit some snags in development, but I expected as much and am fine waiting it out. Of course I have concerns they should be careful not to bite off more than they can chew, but you seem to want them to just settle for average or mediocrity, which is exactly the opposite of the vision of the game and want the majority of backers want.

If they truly do begin running into funding issues, all that should mean is "graceful degradation" of fine-tuning for stuff like the FPS module, mothball some of the concept ships, and curtail the number of systems available at launch to the original plan.

As far as only "15%" of the game being completed ... I'm sure you have insider info on exactly how many systems they have designed right now internally, right?

[stormgust]

If they truly do begin running into funding issues, all that should mean is "graceful degradation" of fine-tuning for stuff like the FPS module, mothball some of the concept ships, and curtail the number of systems available at launch to the original plan.

Their plans for Squadron 42 are (citing Chris Roberts most recent response)

What we are delivering now, just on the Squadron 42 side is more akin to a huge AAA game that would retail for $60 by itself.

So looking at the rest of the Industry, if Squadron 42 is akin to a huge AAA game, then this module alone could eat up the entire budget. Similarly, the persistent universe as an MMO module should fall into a similar cost range and, depending on how extensive the Planetside will be, could go well above that.

CIG is planning several AAA games worth of content running a budget, which allows others in the industry to deliver one game worth of content. So no, if they're running into funding issues, it will affect the core parts. Star Citizen is simply to large of a project not to do so.

[Rennadrel]

One of the things that has been ignored about Squadron 42 is that there will be chapters, it isn't going to be a complete game right out of the gate. And the extra chapters, I would assume, will be monetized in order to cover the costs of funding the remainder of its budget. The initial segment is estimated to have 70 hours of gameplay, obviously we will see whether that is accurate when it does release. Yes, the funding doesn't seem sufficient for the scope of the entire project, but if Squadron 42 does get released and backers only get the initial campaign and have to pay for the rest, I think that would be fair to expect it. I wouldn't put it past them to do it out of necessity, but even if each 10 mission expansion costs $10-15 each, they could easily upwards of 10-15 million per expansion based on the number to SC accounts, assuming every one of the some 988,000 people pledges and gets Squadron 42 for free in totally. Even with almost 800,000 ships currently purchased, assuming half of that is the actual player base, or even 3/4 of it, you'd be looking at several million dollars for each portion of Squadron 42 at $15 each. Not a bad haul when you think about it.

[Tradewind]

There's also the retail purchases of SQ42 outside of those who have already pledged. Which could provide a healthy chunk of cash, directly to CIG as well since no publishers to worry about.

[Aberrict]

The Escapist did a big article on Star Citizen and Chris Roberts has threatened to sue. The Escapist is standing by its piece and sources.

[Doomislav]

The Escapist did a big article on Star Citizen and Chris Roberts has threatened to sue. The Escapist is standing by its piece and sources.

Grooan - I hope this doesn't mean the beginning of the end for CS

Doom