[Megathread] Star Citizen

[Jastall]

Star Citizen backers: “Star Citizen is unique! You can’t compare it to other video games!”
Also Star Citizen backers: “Elite Dangerous! WoW! Cyberpunk! GTA 6! ES6! EVE!”

You guys need to make up your mind.

Not to mention all those companies, you know, released other games during the time. Bethesda hasn't been working only on ES6 for more than a decade, they put out two titles since then, including an MMO funnily enough. Pretty bad one of course, but hey at least it released and I heard they patched it to be somewhat decent now.

WoW's a particularly terrible comparison too. It was developed in just about less than five years, from early 1999 to 2004. During which Blizzard released two massively acclaimed games and assorted expansions. And of course, when we say SC is up to 12 years of development almost, it is meant so far; the game isn't even close to being close to release too. Could hit the 20 year mark, we got no clue.

[Nzx]

And of course, when we say SC is up to 12 years of development almost, it is meant so far; the game isn't even close to being close to release too. Could hit the 20 year mark, we got no clue.

The end result of all of this is that eventually computer technology will progress to the point that you can buy all of the tech that CiG say they've been working on for years off the shelf as SaaS, and then they'll put out a game that is barely on par with other games that are coming out at the time, and go on a victory lap saying "see look we delivered everything we said we would wow look we're amazing" and a bunch of employees that regularly post here will then start a new campaign about how it's not actually unusual that the game cost over a billion dollars of other people's money to make and it doesn't really matter that it's now 2035 and even indie games released on the Playstation 12 and XxXboXxX Series 12 Season 6 #3: HD will have thousand+ player permanent worlds because CiG did it "first" (because they started in 2010 or whatever).

What frustrates me the most about this is that it's a fucking scam. I don't care if shills like the two guys who post here lose money on it, but this game is just prosperity gospel for gamers, and Chris Roberts is no better than a megachurch pastor. It's legitimately pathetic that there appears to be no legal recourse to rein in their sham. Imagine being told by a builder that they'd build you a two bedroom house in a year if you "pledge" them a 20% deposit now, and then two years later they told you it wasn't quite ready because they actually decided to build a four bedroom house instead, and actually they're also thinking they might bring on a new crew and build a three-car garage with a loft as well. Check back in a year, see where we're at with your new one bedroom 14 bathroom house with automated butler (automated referring only to the automatic defecation mode, it doesn't really do anything else).

Fucking ridiculous.

[banmebaby]

It isn't released. It is released, but only as an early alpha. It's an early alpha, so you can't criticize it. It's actually released in Early Access, and is a very impressive product! Actually it isn't released, and there haven't been any release dates.

What you mean is: It has been released for years. It already money X money and isn't even released. Your criticism is invalid because the game is still in alpha phase. It’s an early access, everyone should expect these types of issues. There weren’t any release dates. Has way more content and its way better than most released games.

[Henako]

What you mean is: It has been released for years. It already money X money and isn't even released. Your criticism is invalid because the game is still in alpha phase. It’s an early access, everyone should expect these types of issues. There weren’t any release dates. Has way more content and its way better than most released games.

Your actually just talking bs right now nobody has attempted a game of this scope and its Chris Roberts game anyway and he can do anything he wants with it hes not going to release it until its ready and the community is happy to wait so honestly unless you can back up your claim you should just stop being ignorant.

[- Zephox -]

Your actually just talking bs right now nobody has attempted a game of this scope and its Chris Roberts game anyway and he can do anything he wants with it hes not going to release it until its ready and the community is happy to wait so honestly unless you can back up your claim you should just stop being ignorant.

You have no proof and you have no idea what you are talking about and you have to prove you have an idea of game development. Twitch had a massive increase of 1 viewer the last 30 days and on the free fly event we had a mass increase of 400 people joining to test out our buggy release while thousands left.
Let me find a video we sponsored to get a few hundred views to showcase absolutely nothing.

[banmebaby]

Your actually just talking bs right now nobody has attempted a game of this scope and its Chris Roberts game anyway and he can do anything he wants with it hes not going to release it until its ready and the community is happy to wait so honestly unless you can back up your claim you should just stop being ignorant.

You just lack the knowledge to understand. There is no solid definition of Pay to Win, but what Pay to Win means is that you can buy something that increases your power! Actually, Pay to Win is just something you can only get with real money, and is irrelevant if the focus isn’t PvP, Star Citizen isn’t Pay to Win, BUT most games DO have Pay to Win elements… you know what? Every single video game is Pay to Win, no exceptions, unless is Star Citizen, Star Citizen is more like Pay to Skip, but every game that allows you to buy in-game currency like Star Citizen does is Pay to Win, but Star Citizen isn’t.

[Henako]

You just lack the knowledge to understand. There is no solid definition of Pay to Win, but what Pay to Win means is that you can buy something that increases your power! Actually, Pay to Win is just something you can only get with real money, and is irrelevant if the focus isn’t PvP, Star Citizen isn’t Pay to Win, BUT most games DO have Pay to Win elements… you know what? Every single video game is Pay to Win, no exceptions, unless is Star Citizen, Star Citizen is more like Pay to Skip, but every game that allows you to buy in-game currency like Star Citizen does is Pay to Win, but Star Citizen isn’t.

I like this one. You're mixing in hits from other threads.

[banmebaby]

I like this one. You're mixing in hits from other threads.

Actually, no. This is all from this thread alone, all Star Citizen related.

[Kyanion]

Actually, no. This is all from this thread alone, all Star Citizen related.

Sad but true.

[MrAnderson]

You do know they, like, made another game in between the teaser and release, right? Name of Witcher 3, I heard it was pretty big and popular. They actually worked on Cyberpunk for less than 5 years. SC's release is not even close to being in sight more than 10 years after the Kickstarter. Its far less ambitious single-player module is also MIA after said 10 years. The comparison doesn't work out any way you slice it.

And the fact that it came out broken while being far, far less ambitious than Star Citizen is not a point in your argument's favor either given that the studio supposed to be releasing Star Citizen has no released game under its belt and is keeping their single-player offering under wraps with increasingly implausible excuses as to why they never show it. At least CDPR released 4 games before Cyberpunk.

Finally, if the Kickstarter model causes so many delays and problems... maybe it wasn't the best model for the game. Food for thought.

I'll start with your ending. Kickstart model is not the optimal way to build any kind of ambitious game due to the inherent risks. It exists out of sheer necessity. It's not optimal but it's the Only way. It is one of the main reasons why Star Citizen (and Squadron 42) will keep getting support from players along the years. Despite all these years since the announcement of the Kickstart campaign, there's simply nothing like it in the market.

Now back to Cyberpunk/Witcher/CDProjectRed:

Indeed I know that but it's still relevant that with Witcher 3 they were coming off the development of Witcher 2 which came after Witcher 1. Iterated development and growth. For Witcher 3 they started with 150 dev's, so seasoned in their RED engine and with the accumulated experience and knowledge of working in Witcher 1 and 2.
Witcher 3 project began with 150 employees, eventually growing to over 250 in-house staff. 1,500 people were involved in the production globally. That growth meant instead of having people sitting around doing nothing they could start thinking about other projects aka pre-production. Prototyping new tech, searching visual direction and making and then releasing a the known Cyberpunk Trailer from as a statement that they were making that game and recruitment tool.

Not a straightforward comparison but just like StarCitizen/Squadron 42 Kickstart trailer it announced the project to the world and was used to get hype/funding/developers. It was used to leverage past success/pedigree into getting the ball rolling.

Just like the Star Citizen kickstart campaign had a R&D of engines and pre-production before to launch so did CDProjectRed to make and release Cyberpunk Trailer.

Decisions like, art style, lore, setting etc.

When you say that "They actually worked on Cyberpunk for less than 5 years" is removing all the R&D, pre-production and overall trial and error from the equation and just sticking to the phase where they actually went "OK this is what we want this is the direction were going let's do this".

Which is the equivalent of the stage Star Citizen/Squadron42 got around end 2015-2016 when they settled for the final scope (seamless fully planetary bodies, no loading screens) after getting the core developers to do it (Studio UK & German).

Now Cyberpunk released indeed, but not before cutting severely it's original scope and having huge technical flaws that caused major drama both reputation wise and share wise. It had to be removed from console stores, consoles that were sold with the skin of the game. It's considered an OK game but not revolutionary. Far from the acclaimed hit that Witcher3 was. Still, it made major bucks for it's developers reportedly making a profit since day 1.

I'll keep my stance, way better to wait it out until games are ready than to rush them to cater to some arbitrary date just to make the bucks.

Then at best thats like 30k people and at worst 15k people. That seems terribly low. Are the sub rewards not good?

The sub rewards are mostly getting cosmetic items and even then those can be looted ingame, also to get PTU access earlier.

I'd say between 30k-15k subscribers for a early-access game with a deep learning curve along with steeper hardware requirements is quite good imo considering how residual are the "rewards".

Also, considering the data it's from 2020 and both 2021 and 2022 have showcased increasing numbers in all fronts It's to be expected that subscribers too have increased considerably by then.

A natural evolution of an ever growing game, community along with space suits:


Also, This week we should get more news on the Salvaging mechanic:
https://youtube.com/shorts/2jASSJznj3k?feature=share

Hype!

[banmebaby]

When you say that "They actually worked on Cyberpunk for less than 5 years" is removing all the R&D, pre-production and overall trial and error from the equation and just sticking to the phase where they actually went "OK this is what we want this is the direction were going let's do this".

Which is the equivalent of the stage Star Citizen/Squadron42 got around end 2015-2016 when they settled for the final scope (seamless fully planetary bodies, no loading screens) after getting the core developers to do it (Studio UK & German).

Cyberpunk’s pre-production started with 50 staff members in 2016, after they finished Blood & Wine.

Star Citizen pre-production according to Chris Roberts started in 2010, with “several contractors and outsourced development companies such as CGBot, Rmory, VoidAlpha and Behaviour Interactive”.

Are you trying to tell us that Chris Roberts took 5 or 6 years just to settle on what the fuck he actually wanted to do? Honestly, I actually wouldn’t even be surprised.

[MrAnderson]

Cyberpunk’s pre-production started with 50 staff members in 2016, after they finished Blood & Wine.

That's after the start over and changed scope/direction.

They had teams doing a lot of work prior to that that was scratched, Cyberpunk started as a 3rd Person game like the Witchers. Only later they changed to 1st person view.
(again normal R&D, testing ideas, finding the fun, iteration etc).

There's been several leaked early pre-alpha build videos going back to as early as 2013 indicating that work started a year or even years early:



Reportedly around 2019 there was another major change to the game acomodate Keanu Reeves character.

That's what a AAA game usually looks like during the pre-alpha stage looks like. Not pretty but insightfull and integral part of making games. The long and hard road to craft these big ambitious games often hidden from gamers.
The making of the sausage.

[ldev]

And what does it has to do with tech demos?

[banmebaby]

That's after the start over and changed scope/direction.

They had teams doing a lot of work prior to that that was scratched, Cyberpunk started as a 3rd Person game like the Witchers. Only later they changed to 1st person view.
(again normal R&D, testing ideas, finding the fun, iteration etc).

There's been several leaked early pre-alpha build videos going back to as early as 2013 indicating that work started a year or even years early:



Reportedly around 2019 there was another major change to the game acomodate Keanu Reeves character.

It’s fine to set the development start as far as when the first note about the game was written in toilet paper, however, but you can’t just apply that when it’s convenient to do so. CiG used several contractors and outsourced development companies to do an early prototype in 2010, meaning, Chris Roberts was “testing ideas” and “finding the fun” quite a while before it, right? : )

That's what a AAA game usually looks like during the pre-alpha stage looks like. Not pretty but insightfull and integral part of making games. The long and hard road to craft these big ambitious games often hidden from gamers.
The making of the sausage.

I trust that you might have a lot of knowledge about dem sausages my dude, but I just don’t get what’s your point here.

Why wouldn’t it be “hidden” from gamers? Why should it be pretty?
Gamers aren’t financing the product development, the company itself or its investors are.

Plus, isn’t that part of the reason Star Citizen is taking so fucking long to development? A lot of focus on visuals and big space ships to keep feeding whales while the technology that the entire project is riding on is still nowhere to be seen after all this time?

[- Zephox -]

I trust that you might have a lot of knowledge about dem sausages my dude, but I just don’t get what’s your point here.

After how much CR has a screwed over him and million of others people are you surprised he knows over sausages?

[banmebaby]

According to citizen-con it’s going to be a great year for Star Citizen!

[Gorsameth]

Is that supposed to come out next year?
I can't wait for all of it to be pushed back

[Antipathy1018]

[QUOTE=banmebaby;53909913]According to citizen-con it’s going to be a great year for Star Citizen!

Snip

3.2 and 3.3 require server meshing to work b/c if they can not track everything both those patches cover for everyone on the server it will not work.

Look for the news letter they send out in 5 months or more saying it is again right around the corner. In their own words Salvage needs to track multiple parts of a destroyed ship. Even if we go with the most basic part of a destroyed ship, Hull, Interior, Engines, and Electronic Systems, just those 4 systems will add 4 times per ship destroyed on the server, times lets just say any close players, times whatever players are entering this space. You can see how it can get exponentially more data intensive per player.

I am sure if CitCon happens this year in Nov or so we will find out all this will be pushed back or so cut down as to be just "engage tractor beam, salvage X part".

Edit: Spelling

[banmebaby]

Is that supposed to come out next year?

Maybe, who knows, those are from 2016 =)

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Can there really even be any genuine hype surrounding salvaging after so long? Personally, if it came out today, it'd just get a quick "oh, cool" from me and then I'd go about my day lol

It's hard to get excited for Star Citizen salvaging when Hardspace Shipbreaker has come out and has set the bar for spaceship salvage simulator gameplay.