[Megathread] Star Citizen

[Edge-]

CiG do give the playerbase a road map and whats coming in upcomming patches along with features focused for SQ42 or the PU.

Haven't we long established that the roadmaps are functionally useless through the like, 7 iterations of them that we've seen over the years? Especially since we've repeatedly confirmed that the literal only thing that matters is what Chris Roberts says on any given day, and even then sometimes just ignore him?

[kenn9530]

Haven't we long established that the roadmaps are functionally useless through the like, 7 iterations of them that we've seen over the years? Especially since we've repeatedly confirmed that the literal only thing that matters is what Chris Roberts says on any given day, and even then sometimes just ignore him?

Roadmaps are just a general guide to whats getting worked on and a rough estimate on when they would like it completed around, CiG offer more than enough information about the development of the game and let the playerbase know in advance whats coming to the next PU patch and what is coming in the next few versions.

What matters is the community is constantly updated with more information than any other developer has ever given during a games development.

Meanwhile, Freelancer was actually supposed to be Star Citizen, but look how that went.

Roberts got the players to foot the bill instead this time around, though.

Freelancer was a good game, with a little more work it could of been even better, without someone taking a risk we dont get better games being developed.

[Kyanion]

CiG offer more than enough information about the development of the game

To you maybe.

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Roadmaps are just a general guide to whats getting worked on and a rough estimate on when they would like it completed around

Uh huh sure, what about when they remove things off the roadmap and they are never mentioned again? So transparent!

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Freelancer was a good game, with a little more work it could of been even better, without someone taking a risk we dont get better games being developed.

Lol okay sure. Even if that was true maybe it is because they are you know, crowdfunded and need the whales to keep tossing them money to fund this disaster.

[Edge-]

Roadmaps are just a general guide to whats getting worked on and a rough estimate on when they would like it completed around, CiG offer more than enough information about the development of the game and let the playerbase know in advance whats coming to the next PU patch and what is coming in the next few versions.

What matters is the community is constantly updated with more information than any other developer has ever given during a games development.

Not really. Roadmaps should matter, not just be "general suggestions, kinda sorta, take it or leave it, it doesn't really matter." which is how they've been for SC/SQ42. Again, if y'all are cool with that, fine. I don't buy that hogwash though.

Beyond that, most communicative? In part because they have to be, they need to keep the funders happy so they continue spending. They have a vested, genuine financial interest in this. But most ever? I don't know. I'd argue that what YoshiP did with FFXIV:ARR equals if not surpasses this, and included a lot of work with the community in addition to a TON of transparency about how everything in the game was being overhauled. And they didn't even need to miss milestones by years or have a barely useful roadmap to do it.

[Zaktar]

A space game would very much be a space game if i the only thing i can do is to just fly in space. Ground combat and whatever, is not needed to be a "space game". It can make it better (CAN, not WILL), but you also never heard anyone complaining that racing simulations don't let you step outside your car or that flight sim doesn't let you walk around the airport. Those games focused on their simulation part first and everything else comes after, something that Star Citizien seemingly fails to do.

You do not NEED to have EVERY system you can think of at launch. Any half competent studio would release a game with the feasible features fully functional (like the flying, landing on the planets for trading and such) and give their playerbase a roadmap of what's ahead in the future (like advanced NPC behavior or swimming) and update and patch in all they want in the future. If normal MMO devs would've never stopped trying to put in every system they could think of, the games would've never released, because every dev team always thinks of new systems that would've fit in their game, but half competent studios know what to focus on and that patches and updates to games exist and that additional content can be brought at a later date.

Is it about competence or just a borked funding model though? They've been able to find money every time they reach their hands out. It's funny going back to early in this thread when people were talking about how the game would be "fully funded" at 23 million dollars, then seeing the repeated updates like: "We hit 50 million, here are the new stretch goals for 52 million. We hit 52, now we need 54..." It seems like what's happened is that a perfectionist found a group of enablers.

[Kyanion]

I'd argue that what YoshiP did with FFXIV:ARR equals if not surpasses this, and included a lot of work with the community in addition to a TON of transparency about how everything in the game was being overhauled. And they didn't even need to miss milestones by years or have a barely useful roadmap to do it.

That is one of the ones I'd nominate as most communicative. Even if I don't play FFXIV outside of a month or so on a new expansion I can't argue with how much they give out to the playerbase as what is going on and the thought process.

[kenn9530]

Not really. Roadmaps should matter, not just be "general suggestions, kinda sorta, take it or leave it, it doesn't really matter." which is how they've been for SC/SQ42. Again, if y'all are cool with that, fine. I don't buy that hogwash though.

Beyond that, most communicative? In part because they have to be, they need to keep the funders happy so they continue spending. They have a vested, genuine financial interest in this. But most ever? I don't know. I'd argue that what YoshiP did with FFXIV:ARR equals if not surpasses this, and included a lot of work with the community in addition to a TON of transparency about how everything in the game was being overhauled. And they didn't even need to miss milestones by years or have a barely useful roadmap to do it.

If something isnt ready then something isnt ready so its not possible to follow a roadmap exactly as it is set, there are always going to be detours. They could just do a weekly update on what work they have done so far and that would be fine for providing adequate information, but they go way beyond that and give extensive updates from many of the development team, probably only a small portion of the playerbase even watch much of it.

You do understand that risks WERE taken on Freelancer. It was Roberts first crack at Star Citizen and suffered from the same "lets do all the things!!!" development focus until it just couldn't sustain any longer and they were bought out.

CR is the reason freelancer was as good as it was, we are backing SC because we want the game he has always wanted to make, not just some freelancer upgrade from the origional kickstarter. If they have the time and funding it doesnt matter how long it takes to make the game.

[Edge-]

If something isnt ready then something isnt ready so its not possible to follow a roadmap exactly as it is set, there are always going to be detours.

Sure. But these "detours" seem to be more of the norm rather than the exception. When your roadmaps are consistently off for long periods of time it's not because shit happens, it's because you have bad roadmaps and project management. Nobody expects roadmaps to be perfect and adhered to 100%, but they usually expect them to be fairly useful rather than seeing major features disappear randomly etc.

They could just do a weekly update on what work they have done so far and that would be fine for providing adequate information, but they go way beyond that and give extensive updates from many of the development team, probably only a small portion of the playerbase even watch much of it.

One could argue that their time might be much better spent actually working on sticking to the roadmap instead of wasting hours and hours on deep dives of what they're working on. That's kinda like, a great example of exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to bad project management dude. You scope out updates to the community to be as packed with information as you can without taking too much of the individual teams time. You have CM's sitting in on update meetings internally and gathering information so they can relay this all along without them needing to take a whole day from the lead on X team to sit down and have them write up a big blog post that needs to go through rounds of approvals and edits.

[Kyanion]

there are always going to be detours.

SC: Detours, is probably the pet name of the game from devs.

[Beazy]

CR is the reason freelancer was as good as it was,

LoL freelancer was horse shit garbage and MS shut him down after purchasing 51% of CRobberts options and firing his incompetent ass. They tried to fix the shit show, but had to release it for fear of losing even more money on "Chris's Vision". Why the fuck do you try to re-write history that is recent and people can actually remember?



Does make me wonder though, how close are the Calders to purchasing 51% of his options in CIG? hmmmMMmmmmMMMMmm I wonder.

[kenn9530]

One could argue that their time might be much better spent actually working on sticking to the roadmap instead of wasting hours and hours on deep dives of what they're working on. That's kinda like, a great example of exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to bad project management dude. You scope out updates to the community to be as packed with information as you can without taking too much of the individual teams time. You have CM's sitting in on update meetings internally and gathering information so they can relay this all along without them needing to take a whole day from the lead on X team to sit down and have them write up a big blog post that needs to go through rounds of approvals and edits.

All the roadmap is for is to see whats being worked on and a rough time of when it could be completed, there is only so much work that can be done no matter how good of a developer you are, updates to the community can easily be done after normal work has already been completed so its very doubtful to have any impact to developing the game.

[Kyanion]

All the roadmap is for is to see whats being worked on and a rough time of when it could be completed, there is only so much work that can be done no matter how good of a developer you are, updates to the community can easily be done after normal work has already been completed so its very doubtful to have any impact to developing the game.

So you are saying there is no point to the roadmap. Well thankfully most companies don't see it the way you do. But that isn't a real shocking thing with how most companies act and how you believe they do.

[gondrin]

You know, the more I hear about SC, the more it reminds me of a South Park episode with George R R Martin talking about how the dragons are coming.

[Kyanion]

You know, the more I hear about SC, the more it reminds me of a South Park episode with George R R Martin talking about how the dragons are coming.

Yeah I've made the reference a few times myself.

[Edge-]

All the roadmap is for is to see whats being worked on and a rough time of when it could be completed, there is only so much work that can be done no matter how good of a developer you are

Then why have target completion dates for anything? Why a roadmap at all, which is to look towards the future, rather than just a recap of what the team has done without anything about the future?

updates to the community can easily be done after normal work has already been completed so its very doubtful to have any impact to developing the game.

What does "after normal work" mean? Like, after hours? Because that's still like...work, and either the team is staying extra long for this (not great, adds to burnout) or this is a part of their planned time which means they're eating up a ton of time for community updates that could go towards working on the game.

If you think taking a team lead off of their project to spend a day or two writing a blog update and handle edits/approvals etc. doesn't impact normal workflow like, I don't know what to tell you other than you're wrong. There's a reason it's not something done regularly at most developers, because it's time consuming and can easily interrupt workflows.

There are better, less time consuming ways to delivering meaningful updates to the community if that was the actual priority. But it seems these updates are a part of their marketing strategy to continue to raise funds. Which is like, fine and all, but let's just call a spade a spade.

[kenn9530]

snip

Tasks have a rough timeframe to plan around and try to get the work done if possible but no real issues if it requires more work as needed, setting goals higher than achievable is what companies usually do so they get the most work done as possible.

Team meetings and such are usually done after a normal days work, usually go on and hour or so but currently everyone is at home so i doubt they have an issue with a short video chat on the odd occasion since its mostly different devs each time anyway.

You are just making an assumption they are taking devs off development work to do an blog/community update, when there is actually staff members in CiG that are not devs that are more likely the ones who would be translating the information for the community on the website. Each team will probably do a weekly report on progress and whats been done, it doesnt take a dev to take the relevant information out and give it to the community.

[Kyanion]

Tasks have a rough timeframe to plan around and try to get the work done if possible but no real issues if it requires more work as needed, setting goals higher than achievable is what companies usually do so they get the most work done as possible.

I imagine most companies don't miss 'rough timeframes' by YEARS either.

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Team meetings and such are usually done after a normal days work, usually go on and hour or so but currently everyone is at home so i doubt they have an issue with a short video chat on the odd occasion since its mostly different devs each time anyway.

Assumption

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You are just making an assumption they are taking devs off development work to do an blog/community update, when there is actually staff members in CiG that are not devs that are more likely the ones who would be translating the information for the community on the website.

Irony.....

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Each team will probably do a weekly report on progress and whats been done, it doesnt take a dev to take the relevant information out and give it to the community.

Will probably? You mean you are ASSUMING things? The horror!

[Edge-]

Tasks have a rough timeframe to plan around and try to get the work done if possible but no real issues if it requires more work as needed, setting goals higher than achievable is what companies usually do so they get the most work done as possible.

And we're back to, "Deadlines and target delivery dates don't matter anymore" which continues to beg the question: Why even have them?

Team meetings and such are usually done after a normal days work, usually go on and hour or so but currently everyone is at home so i doubt they have an issue with a short video chat on the odd occasion since its mostly different devs each time anyway.

Citation needed*

You are just making an assumption they are taking devs off development work to do an blog/community update, when there is actually staff members in CiG that are not devs that are more likely the ones who would be translating the information for the community on the website.

That would be a community team, yes, which I believe CIG has. Are they ghostwriting the team updates that are often included, and attributed to the literal members of the team providing the update? Usually if say, a lead environmental artists writes a blog update about something new they're working on, it's actually that guy taking time out of his day to write about it.

Each team will probably do a weekly report on progress and whats been done, it doesnt take a dev to take the relevant information out and give it to the community.

You are just making an assumption

I'll let you respond to yourself, here.

[Kyanion]

I'll let you respond to yourself, here.

Usually there is at least a small gap in his posts where he contradicts what he says, but the same post? Impressive.

[Henako]

You are just making an assumption

Okay...

devs that are more likely the ones who... Each team will probably do....

What are these, if not assumptions?

I'll let you respond to yourself, here.

I should have kept reading. You put that much better than I did.