[Megathread] Star Citizen

[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.

[Gorsameth]

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.

Except for the part where the game that went to kickstarter lacked a lot of the features that were later added as stretch goals.

so yes, feature creep.

I'd go back and link all the stretch goal features that they added but it seems like they changed the pages and they no longer show up.

[masterhorus8]

Except for the part where the game that went to kickstarter lacked a lot of the features that were later added as stretch goals.

so yes, feature creep.

I'd go back and link all the stretch goal features that they added but it seems like they changed the pages and they no longer show up.

None of what you just said contradicted what I said.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals (I can find it just fine)

Majority = more than half. Not to mention, a LOT of what was added in the later goals was content and not features.

[Malibutomi]

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.

So as i thought you know basically nothing about the project, just read some articles and stating things based on that. Your former comments already showed that when you just guessed about the engine change etc, but now it's clear.
It's not against you really, but as SC has millions of pages of info out there, weekly shows, dev panels at different events, etc. then you cannot have a valid opinion after reading 2-3 articles. Especially if you only read those bashing ones based on "sources" from years ago.

They never got a plan, that's why they are sharing their detailed internal schedule on the homepage right? They always had a plan, they just changed it accordingly to the increased funding, and the will of the backers.
You go on about "social and professional structure" which you know nothing about (obviously) just read somewhere that the evil CR is harassing the devs right?

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.

Plan the work then work the plan? That is what happened. They have seen that they can use much more money, so they changed the studios structure, and the pipelines accordingly and started to work towards the bigger plan.
All the studios knows "wtf was going on" because they have meetings on daily basis.

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.

The fact you think the game should be out now shows that you know nothing about the project, and/or completely dissing facts for your narrative.
If giants like Blizzard and Sony need 5 years to build a hacknslash MMO which has basically no physics, smaller maps, and nothing new, tell me how on earth should CIG finish a much-much bigger and complicated MMO when they started from basically zero, and had to build up the studios/teams, work structure first? Yes they could have made a smaller game and pocket 100 million, then people would go on about that, not to mention again that backers voted to use the increased funding to build a bigger/better game.
The fact the game isn't out yet shows basically nothing. If it won't be close to finish in another 2 years, then you can go on about it being late.

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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.

People give them money because they want product X. Then they voted to add Y and Z too and use the funding for that.
Here i corrected it for you.

[stellvia]

I'm less concerned about how long it has taken and more concerned about how long it is going to take.
If, after 4.5 years we still don't have a single completed star system, how long is 100+ going to take? At the rate things are going we won't be able to jump to another star system until December 2018 and that's just a tiny portion of the game. They want to make everything individual and unique and Crysis-quality etc but that's going to take a stupidly unreasonable amount of time.

This is quite literally what their tools development in the last year has been about. Developing content creation tools that rapidly prototype via procedural generation, but are flexible enough to go in manually afterwards and add all the POIs. Making "tilesets" for specific station types so they can tetris together unique stations faster, etc.

Setting aside the question of them being far enough along with it or not, they are at least aware doing absolutely everything 100% by hand is unfeasible. They could probably go ahead and manually work out some systems now, but in the long run its more money and time efficient to get the tools built first, even if its hard as bystanders for us to be patient with that.

[Dhrizzle]

I have a question for some of the bigger spenders (the ones who have spent hundreds or thousands of dollars so far) and it's not exactly nay-saying, but it is about possible concerns.

Are any of you worried that you might just not like the game? Even if (when) SC's persistent universe is implemented there's a chance that you just don't enjoy the core gameplay, or the mini-games that make up your preferred job, or you feel your job isn't rewarding enough for the effort you put in... normally when paying ~£40 for a game I feel that's a justified risk, after all sometimes games just suck, but for people who've sunk a significant amount of money whilst basic systems are still being sketched in it seems like a crazy gamble.