Star Citizen

[FPAlpha]

Oh man.. that'll be a day when they finally have to admit that the game won't be published, that they've run out of funds and have to close up shop. It will be a very interesting read in the weeks that come including legit (and some possibly fabricated) reports from people who have worked for the company and left.

The sad thing is that it is still the best looking space game currently out there, the design work is amazing, the scope of the game is mindblowing and if it had a professional and effective project manager we might already be playing it, maybe not the full thing Roberts envisioned but if the game proved to be a financial success the cash it generated could have been used for major expansions introducing features that could not be made in the intial release so after 2-3 years it could have been this massive game it was promised to be.

Now actually i think Roberts is coming dangerously close to actually being sued for breaching laws but irregardless his reputation might be shot forever. He had the biggest crowdfunding campaign any game ever had, millions donated and all he produced were some shiny graphics and some tech demos at best ( i can't call this a game at this stage.. some months ago they had a free trial week and i decided to try it. I have a pretty good PC currently, able to run any modern game at full quality without problems yet this turd managed to sputter out not to say that it has piss poor explanation on how any of it works).

 

[Blamo]

I can't really see Roberts being sued (atleast not successfully). Despite the project being a mess, he didn't break any laws. I wouldn't even call it a scam.

No, the biggest issue with Roberts is he's an imbecile. One with little actual experience with programming a modern game and far too focused on what looks/sounds cool rather than what is feasible. Cryengine was a huge mistake to start with, even I knew that. He picked it because it was pretty, no other reason.

"Realistic" ragdoll physics? That sounds cool, lets stick that in. Only it screws up pretty much everything else in the game. It really wasn't needed or even wanted, but it pretty much set the alpha back months.

I had hoped that by surrounding himself with skilled developers and programmers it would offset his weakpoints and strengthen the strong ones. To a certain extent they did, unfortunately Roberts seems to be rather uncompromising and too much of a perfectionist.

The other big issue is it's crowdfunded. It's just not a feasible method of funding a large AAA game. Gamers have little to no knowledge of what is actually involved in game development (or even an average business for that matter). Some even seem to think a 3d modeller can fix complex bugs.

 

[Timby]

I'm just going to leave this here.

 

[FPAlpha]

To be honest i have actually little sympathy for someone who spends 3000 $ on an unfinished game by a company whose CEO has a track record for being a very bad project manager. Maybe i'm too old or too conservative or not gamer enough but i just don't get it that someone could spend 3000$ for a game still in development.

Just boggles my mind.

 

[Timby]

The point is that CIG's chief legal counsel literally lied in writing to the Attorney General of California.

 

[Jedi Marso]

To be honest i have actually little sympathy for someone who spends 3000 $ on an unfinished game by a company whose CEO has a track record for being a very bad project manager. Maybe i'm too old or too conservative or not gamer enough but i just don't get it that someone could spend 3000$ for a game still in development.

Just boggles my mind.

No doubt. For $3000 I'd better not get just a finished game, but the gorram holodeck to play it in!

 

[Tiberius Jim]

Well, I *was* thinking of getting the cheapest ship/package to try this out after seeing that 3.0 demo and then I saw this thread...

 

[Timby]

The release of the first "episode" (five missions) of Squadron 42, the single-player component, has now been pushed back to the middle or end of 2017.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Hard to imagine how they'll have enough money to make it that long.

 

[FPAlpha]

I've seen bits and pieces of some new build/features like procedurally generated planetary landings in a new build of the game that was presented at Gamescom and damn does the game look gorgeous. However still no release date and still adding new features instead of making old and needed ones working.

I am/have played Elite Dangerous and am a big fan.. the game does not look as fancy like Star Citizen and it certainly limited itself to pure spaceship control at first but it was released 2 years ago and works perfectly and is a very good, deeply layered and fun game where you have the option tp choose whichever career path you want.

They have released their first Add On this year that introduced Planetary Landings but only after the initial game was working and the major kinks smoothed out.

What i'm trying to say is that Roberts should have taken a page (or a few chapters) out of Braben's book on how to a complex game and still release it in a timely manner. It's obvious but i'm just so frustrated that they keep adding unecessary stuff before the core of the game is even finished. It's ok that they place such a big importance on graphics and design because they had the immensely successful Kickstarter and kept gathering cash so they could pay a big team to do the visual aspects but when you spend 80% of your effort (my totally unfounded and unproven guess) on polishing a product that's not done at the core i get a "little" annoyed (mainly because i want to play it so bad).

 

[Robert Maxwell]

That all boils down to Roberts being a horrible project manager. That's the bottom line. He doesn't know how to scope a project--to pick a limited and realistic feature set and then implement it. He wants to do everything, and doesn't seem to care how long it will take, as if money is infinite. And, as you say, necessary features are half-finished or not present at all, while they're already moving on to other bells and whistles.

It's not a good sign for the future of the game(s).

 

[SPCTRE]

Star Citizen's single player campaign will miss 2016 launch date

Squadron 42, the single player branch of Star Citizen, has been delayed into 2017.

At Citizencon the team at Cloud Imperium Games announced the delay, saying that the campaign would not meet its 2016 release date. While a lot of the technology behind the game is done there are still a few areas that are lacking such as AI logic and mission integration.

The team's current project is to bring one of the chapters to release quality, and when that is done it will be shown off to the public. Somewhat worryingly there is 28 chapters in the game, which makes it sound like there is a lot of work to get done.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I guess chapters 2-28 will be stretch goals.

 

[Timby]

Squadron 42 has been a year away for four years, now.

 

[Blamo]

That all boils down to Roberts being a horrible project manager. That's the bottom line. He doesn't know how to scope a project--to pick a limited and realistic feature set and then implement it. He wants to do everything, and doesn't seem to care how long it will take, as if money is infinite. And, as you say, necessary features are half-finished or not present at all, while they're already moving on to other bells and whistles.

It's not a good sign for the future of the game(s).

Yeah, frankly the whole project would be far smoother if he just sat back from it.

I'm sure it'd make the devs relax a bit, instead of watching 10 for the Chairmen and wondering what he's going to promise next off the top of his head.

Anyway, a bit more positive:-

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Something we weren't supposed to really see yet.

 

[Timby]

Yeah, frankly the whole project would be far smoother if he just sat back from it.

This will literally never happen, though, because Roberts clearly loves being at the head of an insane cargo cult. Moreso than that, Roberts has always been more preoccupied with making Squadron 42: The Movie than anything else, because he's still bitter about flaming out as a Hollywood director and producer (Hint: It helps when you don't piss off Kevin Costner, Chris). According to leaked internal estimates, CIG has spent roughly $60 million on mo-cap shooting, with at least a third of that being due to constant re-shoots because of constant script rewrites -- Oldman is rumored to be off the project for any further work, as is Gillian Anderson, so they've been working with soundalikes and stand-ins.

The current estimated burn rate for the studios combined is $3 - 4 million per month.

The most telling thing about the entire project is that it's patently obvious that no one at CIG, not even Erin Roberts -- the only producer on the project who seems to be remotely sane -- has any real idea what the game is supposed to be. They still have no clue about player or ship progression, they still have no clue how the PU, the economy and NPCs are supposed to actually work, they still haven't designed half the ships that are supposed to be in Squadron 42, and I could go on. All they do is release vague tech demos and JPEGs, and people eat it up because they've been theorycrafting what the "game" will be since it was announced in 2012.

 

[FPAlpha]

I think it will go the Duke Nuke'em path.. when finally released people will go "Meh.. expected more" because it will be a mediocre game that could never measure up to the insane hype.

 

[SPCTRE]

I Sold My ‘Star Citizen’ Fleet To Finance a New Car

 

[Blamo]

The capital ships

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I really do hope the game is released, if only because I wouldn't want to see all these excellent assets go to waste.

 

[Kemaiku]

*lingering shot of rows of escape pods*

Hm, probably a joke in there somewhere...

Not that I'd do that.