[Megathread] Star Citizen

[masterhorus8]

It has still been in development since 2012. Yeah they switched engines in 2016...that doesn't change the fact that they had been working on the game since 2012.

You don't give the mechanic a free pass when they say you'll have your car back in 3 days, and then 3 days later they let you know they were trying to fix it with tools that didn't work and now need another...unknown amount of time, but it's OK they have some pretty pictures of the new tools they're using to fix it, of your car in the garage on the lift and the hood up and clips of a car that looks like yours driving down the road trying to show you what it would look like when it finally does get fixed.

I see what you're saying, but still a shitty comparison. SC wasn't an already working car that needs to be fixed.

[Katchii]

I see what you're saying, but still a shitty comparison. SC wasn't an already working car that needs to be fixed.

The point is that we were given an original "ready by" date and they missed it by MILES. Regardless of what's happened between now and then, the game has been in development since 2012 and there is very little to show for it. If they changed engines because the first one wasn't working for them, that's a very good and valid reason, however it's absolutely ridiculous that it took them 4 YEARS to figure that out or make the decision to cut their losses and move to a different engine.

For the point of this discussion I'm not poking at the game itself, I'm poking at the development and program management of this as a project and this just looks and feels like one of the most horribly managed projects I've ever seen. Whether the game that comes of it is amazing or not, I'm not hopeful that it will last long because if this is how the game gets managed.....it's not going to do well in the long term, IMO. We'll have to wait and see.

[masterhorus8]

The point is that we were given an original "ready by" date and they missed it by MILES. Regardless of what's happened between now and then, the game has been in development since 2012 and there is very little to show for it. If they changed engines because the first one wasn't working for them, that's a very good and valid reason, however it's absolutely ridiculous that it took them 4 YEARS to figure that out or make the decision to cut their losses and move to a different engine.

For the point of this discussion I'm not poking at the game itself, I'm poking at the development and program management of this as a project and this just looks and feels like one of the most horribly managed projects I've ever seen. Whether the game that comes of it is amazing or not, I'm not hopeful that it will last long because if this is how the game gets managed.....it's not going to do well in the long term, IMO. We'll have to wait and see.

You do know that I said that I knew what you were saying and didn't disagree...right?

But now that you added more, I can disagree, because it didn't take them 4 years to switch engines. The initial stuff was just that, initial. I believe it was late 2013 when they did their poll to not bother with the dogfight module on the old engine and start working on updating CryEngine (around when I started watching stuff, so my memory may be hazy). Everything else after that point has been them working on the baseline framework at the same time as having management problems and building the company up (likely related to each other). If you're referring to the recent Lumberyard switch, that's mostly due to the networking problems (AWS is just flat out better than their previous setup). It was still the same engine, just putting their mods back onto the same thing that has mods in different places.

[Deleted]

Is this game ever going to be released?

For me it seems this is a neverending crowdfunding black hole.

[masterhorus8]

Is this game ever going to be released?

For me it seems this is a neverending crowdfunding black hole.

It's almost like a game is being made and worked on. Who knew that a game took time to make?

This is why studios never announce anything until they're almost done.

[Rennadrel]

It's almost like a game is being made and worked on. Who knew that a game took time to make?

This is why studios never announce anything until they're almost done.

Or you can do what NMS did, and announce a game with a shit load of promised features only to release about an eighth of what was originally announced.

[Tackhisis]

It's almost like a game is being made and worked on. Who knew that a game took time to make?

Elite: Dangerous has managed to bring out playable product in less time.

[Katchii]

You do know that I said that I knew what you were saying and didn't disagree...right?

But now that you added more, I can disagree, because it didn't take them 4 years to switch engines. The initial stuff was just that, initial. I believe it was late 2013 when they did their poll to not bother with the dogfight module on the old engine and start working on updating CryEngine (around when I started watching stuff, so my memory may be hazy). Everything else after that point has been them working on the baseline framework at the same time as having management problems and building the company up (likely related to each other). If you're referring to the recent Lumberyard switch, that's mostly due to the networking problems (AWS is just flat out better than their previous setup). It was still the same engine, just putting their mods back onto the same thing that has mods in different places.

I still count 4 years from the start of development to when they switched. Development began in 2012 and they switched engines in 2016, which is still not 2014 the year they initially said was the tentative release year. I'm sure there are little things here and there that happened between 2012 and 2014 and again between 2014 and 2016 and again from 2016 to present. Main point again simply being how badly managed this project seems to be based on both information directly from the dev team and information/ data that is notably absent.

I can't even comment on how the game looks at this point because I haven't seen the game yet. That's a laughable achievement when they're 5 years into development...regardless of what speed bumps they've hit along the way.

[masterhorus8]

Elite: Dangerous has managed to bring out playable product in less time.

See the response above yours.

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Or you can do what NMS did, and announce a game with a shit load of promised features only to release about an eighth of what was originally announced.

Don't forget that they charge(d) their backers for the content that they backed for that was then released afterwords.

[1001]

See the response above yours.

But Elite didn't promise a load of things for launch and only deliver an eighth of them. Right back in the kickstarter they made it clear that they would be using an expansion model and that planetary landings etc would be part of those expansions. Besides expectation and reality need to be considered when knowing a game is releasing just 2 years after its kickstarter. If people say that your normal game takes 6-7 years to make then why do they think Frontier could cram that down into 2 years?

[Rennadrel]

Elite: Dangerous has managed to bring out playable product in less time.

And it was a pretty rudimentary game in terms of features and content, things that iirc, people have had to pay for since the game released.

[Karon]

"Developing a game with less than a hundred people doesn't count as developement time!!"

[Malibutomi]

Elite: Dangerous has managed to bring out playable product in less time.

Elite is a very bad comparison. They are an established studio (founded in 1994), CIG was founded not long before KS. They had the Cobra engine worked for decades ("COBRA has been carefully planned, developed and evolved since 1988."), SC needed to rewrite Cryengine mostly.
They have a much smaller scope even now. SC with the FPS element is several magnitudes bigger work (animation, ship and station interiors which needs to match the exterior, etc). I'd say one capital ship in SC takes more work than half a solar system in Elite

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I still count 4 years from the start of development to when they switched. Development began in 2012 and they switched engines in 2016, which is still not 2014 the year they initially said was the tentative release year. I'm sure there are little things here and there that happened between 2012 and 2014 and again between 2014 and 2016 and again from 2016 to present. Main point again simply being how badly managed this project seems to be based on both information directly from the dev team and information/ data that is notably absent.

I can't even comment on how the game looks at this point because I haven't seen the game yet. That's a laughable achievement when they're 5 years into development...regardless of what speed bumps they've hit along the way.

Don't take it personally, but if you haven't even see the game, and your knowledge of the project is close to zero, then why are you arguing about it?
The game wasn't released in 2014 because they had more money, and the backers voted to go on with the funding campaign, and spend the money to make a bigger better game.

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The point is that we were given an original "ready by" date and they missed it by MILES. Regardless of what's happened between now and then, the game has been in development since 2012 and there is very little to show for it. If they changed engines because the first one wasn't working for them, that's a very good and valid reason, however it's absolutely ridiculous that it took them 4 YEARS to figure that out or make the decision to cut their losses and move to a different engine.

They didn't change for a different engine. Lumberyard is the same Cryengine, just with amazon clouds service integrated in it (which they use for servers). It's basically the same engine, so they just lifted heir code base from the original Cryengine, and put it in Lumberyard. It's not like they changed to Unreal Engine or something completely different.

For the point of this discussion I'm not poking at the game itself, I'm poking at the development and program management of this as a project and this just looks and feels like one of the most horribly managed projects I've ever seen. Whether the game that comes of it is amazing or not, I'm not hopeful that it will last long because if this is how the game gets managed.....it's not going to do well in the long term, IMO. We'll have to wait and see.

How can you have a valid opinion on the development and program management when you didn't even know facts about the project, and haven't even see the game in it's current form?
Also it will take a good few years to see if its badly managed or not. Because as of now they only reached 4.5 years of development.
This is about the dev time of a bigger single player game made by an established studio with team ready, on an out of the shelf engine without any risky new tech.
SC and SQ42 are an MMO + a single player game, they had to build up all the teams and studios on the fly as they started from zero, rewrite the engine to fit the games needs, and develop a lot of tools and tech.
So the 4.5 years is by no means a lot for an MMO vastly more complicated than the usual hacknslash ones out there.

[Afrospinach]

and spend the money to make a bigger better game.

I think this is the most pertinent point. I bet you CIG was absolutely blindsided by the largest crowdfunding effort ever, on a target of 500k. There is nothing of this type in SC's league as of yet. When you funding keeps rolling in what do you do? The fact that it has not been exactly the most coherent development process and has suffered from feature creep is pretty understandable really.

What game were they expecting to build for 500k? for 10m? 100m? and so it continues.

[Gorsameth]

I think this is the most pertinent point. I bet you CIG was absolutely blindsided by the largest crowdfunding effort ever, on a target of 500k. There is nothing of this type in SC's league as of yet. When you funding keeps rolling in what do you do? The fact that it has not been exactly the most coherent development process and has suffered from feature creep is pretty understandable really.

What game were they expecting to build for 500k? for 10m? 100m? and so it continues.

A smart Producer would say 'we can't handle a bigger game' and stop feeding stretch goals. If people want to keep pileing on money that's their choice but producers need to realize when a project is getting to big and that there is a point where you have to stop expanding your scope.

Its not like this is some unprecidented problem. Feature creep is design 101.

[Malibutomi]

A smart Producer would say 'we can't handle a bigger game' and stop feeding stretch goals. If people want to keep pileing on money that's their choice but producers need to realize when a project is getting to big and that there is a point where you have to stop expanding your scope.

Its not like this is some unprecidented problem. Feature creep is design 101.

If they got the money, and can hire talented devs then they can handle the bigger game.
If they would have done what you have said you'd be the loudest basher that they are just pocketing the money while making a game from the fragmentvof the whole funding.
Also what is too big? If they getting close to finish in 2019 thats 7 years, about right for an MMO this siza and complexity, if big studios can push out the usual hacknslash MMOs in about 5 years.

[Gorsameth]

If they got the money, and can hire talented devs then they can handle the bigger game.
If they would have done what you have said you'd be the loudest basher that they are just pocketing the money while making a game from the fragmentvof the whole funding.
Also what is too big? If they getting close to finish in 2019 thats 7 years, about right for an MMO this siza and complexity, if big studios can push out the usual hacknslash MMOs in about 5 years.

"just hire more people" is not an answer to feature creep. Please follow basic classes on design.

No I would not be bashing them in the same way that other kickstarters that went over their goal and didn't add stretchgoals were not bashed for 'pocketing the money'. In the same way that any producer of goods is not bashed for selling more of a product then they need in order to recuperate costs.

People give them money because they want product X. just because 100 million people want X does not mean you are somehow obligated to also give them Y and Z.

What is to big? That depends on a ton of factors which is why I did not specify it and said that deciding that limit is up to the Producer.
And no, there is no way in hell that Star Citizen will deliver on all its goals by 2019.

[Katchii]

Elite is a very bad comparison. They are an established studio (founded in 1994), CIG was founded not long before KS. They had the Cobra engine worked for decades ("COBRA has been carefully planned, developed and evolved since 1988."), SC needed to rewrite Cryengine mostly.
They have a much smaller scope even now. SC with the FPS element is several magnitudes bigger work (animation, ship and station interiors which needs to match the exterior, etc). I'd say one capital ship in SC takes more work than half a solar system in Elite

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Don't take it personally, but if you haven't even see the game, and your knowledge of the project is close to zero, then why are you arguing about it?
The game wasn't released in 2014 because they had more money, and the backers voted to go on with the funding campaign, and spend the money to make a bigger better game.

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They didn't change for a different engine. Lumberyard is the same Cryengine, just with amazon clouds service integrated in it (which they use for servers). It's basically the same engine, so they just lifted heir code base from the original Cryengine, and put it in Lumberyard. It's not like they changed to Unreal Engine or something completely different.




How can you have a valid opinion on the development and program management when you didn't even know facts about the project, and haven't even see the game in it's current form?
Also it will take a good few years to see if its badly managed or not. Because as of now they only reached 4.5 years of development.
This is about the dev time of a bigger single player game made by an established studio with team ready, on an out of the shelf engine without any risky new tech.
SC and SQ42 are an MMO + a single player game, they had to build up all the teams and studios on the fly as they started from zero, rewrite the engine to fit the games needs, and develop a lot of tools and tech.
So the 4.5 years is by no means a lot for an MMO vastly more complicated than the usual hacknslash ones out there.

Based on some information I've been reading this game has been a project management disaster since day 1. With no executives/ competent project managers forcing the studio to actually get shit done and the money just pouring in from both Kickstarter and the Star Citizen website they never got a plan together. Coupled with the fact that over time the studio turned into 5 studios that could barely even work together with a social and professional structure that's practically non-existent, it's no wonder we have this fragmented mess.

The team never had a solid plan...they had pipe dreams and aspirations based on the money coming in that just kept growing and changing. Rule number 1 in Project Management is to plan the work then work the plan. The problem was the plan here was always changing so they could never work to the plan because the other studios didn't know wtf was going on. Chris Roberts had been out of touch with the development world for 10 years, which is practically a lifetime when you're talking about such rapidly evolving tech and how many studios evolved and sprung up during that time. So his initial plan and ever changing views were not based in the current reality and how the industry actually worked.

The fact that the game isn't out because of scope creep (when you spend so much time revising your plan and making it bigger that you never actually get time to work on the plan or it gets too big so as to be unwieldy) speaks to just how badly this whole project has been mismanaged.

[1001]

And it was a pretty rudimentary game in terms of features and content, things that iirc, people have had to pay for since the game released.

One payment for an expansion since release. Even then it's not compulsory unless you want the new features offered via the expansion.

Elite is a very bad comparison. They are an established studio (founded in 1994), CIG was founded not long before KS. They had the Cobra engine worked for decades ("COBRA has been carefully planned, developed and evolved since 1988."), SC needed to rewrite Cryengine mostly.
They have a much smaller scope even now. SC with the FPS element is several magnitudes bigger work (animation, ship and station interiors which needs to match the exterior, etc). I'd say one capital ship in SC takes more work than half a solar system in Elite.

They certainly had those things, however it's not like their Cobra engine was all set up and ready to go for making their space game. They've done extensive work on the engine since the kickstarter.
They do have a smaller scope, although it is not tremendously smaller, a cursory browse through the design discussion forum should put that idea to rest, but is that really surprising considering they have far less financing? CIG have got their money upfront, Frontier have had to earn it via box sales.

Comparing the amount of work isn't really an indicator for anything. Elite is working from the large to the small whereas Star Citizen is working from the small to the large so it clearly needs that first person detail now.

[masterhorus8]

Based on some information I've been reading this game has been a project management disaster since day 1. With no executives/ competent project managers forcing the studio to actually get shit done and the money just pouring in from both Kickstarter and the Star Citizen website they never got a plan together. Coupled with the fact that over time the studio turned into 5 studios that could barely even work together with a social and professional structure that's practically non-existent, it's no wonder we have this fragmented mess.

The team never had a solid plan...they had pipe dreams and aspirations based on the money coming in that just kept growing and changing. Rule number 1 in Project Management is to plan the work then work the plan. The problem was the plan here was always changing so they could never work to the plan because the other studios didn't know wtf was going on. Chris Roberts had been out of touch with the development world for 10 years, which is practically a lifetime when you're talking about such rapidly evolving tech and how many studios evolved and sprung up during that time. So his initial plan and ever changing views were not based in the current reality and how the industry actually worked.

The fact that the game isn't out because of scope creep (when you spend so much time revising your plan and making it bigger that you never actually get time to work on the plan or it gets too big so as to be unwieldy) speaks to just how badly this whole project has been mismanaged.

You're making it sound like CIG went "Okay guys, so, we're going to add this new feature, game is delayed another year!" When in actuality, nothing has truly been added (aside from newer methods to get things done) since mid 2014, with a majority of the features added in 2012-2013. Which, tbh, is part of the management problem. All of the features came into the light so quickly that they just couldn't keep up. And feature creep is such a buzzword that honestly doesn't apply to this game because none of it creeped at all.

BTW, lol kotaku article...save yourself some brain cells and stop reading that garbage.