Just a heads up on how its going, for those of us who keep checking in on the games progress, 10 billion years after the initial Kickstarter, and after a zillion dollars of development heck....

 

Ah yes, Star Citizen, the world's longest-running train wreck...

The premise intrigued me back when it was a Kickstarter - it reminded me of a more polished, more interesting concept of Freelancer or some of the space sims from many years ago.

Where they lost me was the intense and unbelievable monetization. They've hoovered up millions from people and there isn't enough to show for it.

To be fair, $500,000,000 just isn't what it used to be.

a perfect example of the cancer that is pay to beta.

Edited March 14, 20233 yr by fluffyflops

I wanted to test the new version, but after finally getting in, I once again found the whole experience a bit directionless, buggy, slow and ultimately..... disappointing, for something that has had so much time and resources thrown at it.

What should been a flat-out "Wow!" experience instead felt unfinished, as if a million cool ideas had been thrown together in a blender, with very little eventually emerging in a particularly polished or finished state.

The npc's were all standing on chairs and other furniture, while staring lifelessly ahead; the hover shuttle had such low LOD even on max game settings that it literally appeared out of thin air a few yards away instead of approaching visibly from the distance, and once it arrived, it stuttered and seemed uncertain of its parking space, as well as clipping through other vehicles....

The city I was in felt deserted ( I saw one other person) the ship-calling kiosk was not working, the fps even on my brand new system were pedestrian.....

I ended up wondering where all the money was going, and wishing they had concentrated on doing a limited number of things exceedingly well, instead of doing a zillion things with "meh" results.

Now.... Here's the thing.

There is a game out there called SpaceBourne2 that is made by one guy

And it did not cost 500 million dollars, nor require an army of programmers from studios all over the world.

Nor is it buggy as heck, and nor does it ask outrageous amounts of cash for new ships... Etc.

So.... What on earth is going on with Star Citizen in contrast to this, not to even mention the soon-to-arrive Bethesda space game Starfield?

Things that make you go "Hmmmmmmm...."

 

 

Edited March 19, 20233 yr by HiFlyer

On 3/14/2023 at 4:40 PM, HiFlyer said:

after a zillion dollars of development heck....

 

$500 million I recall. 😲

It is getting a bit daft now. What is it, 10 years now?

You'll probably get a new Half Life first. 😏

 

On 3/19/2023 at 4:01 PM, HiFlyer said:

Now.... Here's the thing.

There is a game out there called SpaceBourne2 that is made by one guy

And it did not cost 500 million dollars, nor require an army of programmers from studios all over the world.

Nor is it buggy as heck, and nor does it ask outrageous amounts of cash for new ships... Etc.

So.... What on earth is going on with Star Citizen in contrast to this, not to even mention the soon-to-arrive Bethesda space game Starfield?

Things that make you go "Hmmmmmmm...."

 

I don't want to judge a game by one single teaser video, but what I saw in there was not really fitting much to the kind of game that Star Citizen is. The game you are showing here is more like a traditional space action game, whereas Star Citizen bring is a whole new gameplay. The interactions with your vessels is just one of the things that seem to be missing from that teaser, in which the interior of the vessels is unavailable ?

Star Citizen seduced many of us because if was finally a game in which you are not a ship, but a pilot (or any other role) in a ship. That alone changes everything.

Yes, the 3.18 is a catastrophe. Bad builds happened already in the past, and they will happen again.

Edited March 20, 20233 yr by Daube

On 3/19/2023 at 9:01 AM, HiFlyer said:

So.... What on earth is going on with Star Citizen in contrast to this, not to even mention the soon-to-arrive Bethesda space game Starfield?

Things that make you go "Hmmmmmmm...."

Chris Roberts, by different accounts I have read over the years, seems to be somone with grand ideas that suddenly found himself a giant pot of gold, but with little proper project management or planning skills. While the Wing Commander series was excellent, there were other people involved that kept those projects moving forward towards releasing an actual game. Alongside Mr. Roberts today, there are also plenty of people that seem to be happy going along for the ride and keep throwing more money at it, further enabling him.

58 minutes ago, Daube said:

Bad builds happened already in the past, and they will happen again.

And one day, one of those builds will, by complete accident, actually be a finished version of the game. By my estimates, this will be sometime around the time our Sun burns out.

1 hour ago, Daube said:

The interactions with your vessels is just one of the things that seem to be missing from that teaser, in which the interior of the vessels is unavailable ?

You can fly from the interior, but no, there are no buttons to click on, the interface is mostly mouse and keyboard based. Maybe more along the lines of the X-Series of games.

1 hour ago, Daube said:

Star Citizen seduced many of us because if was finally a game in which you are not a ship, but a pilot (or any other role) in a ship. That alone changes everything.

This actually has that as well, except in a single player context. Not saying the game is perfect, because its not, but when you juxtapose the efforts of a single person against the zillion dollar colossus of Star Citizen, its hard for me not to think something is amiss.

Here is a look at the good and the bad. Not so bad for me, since any jank encountered is about the same amount as what I encounter in Star Citizen.....

 

What I meant is that you cannot access the interior of the ship. You can either be a character on foot out of the ship, or be the ship, but you can't actually travel IN the ship, contrary to Star Citizen in which you are, at any point in time, a character going through its environment.

This is the gameplay essential difference that makes Star Citizen interesting and different from everything we ever had since the start of space video games. This is also the main difference with (and huge source of disappointment for me) with StarField, in which you can visit your ship and you can't even pilot it during transitions between space and atmosphere ? Starfield has, accroding to what I read about it so far, close to nothing for me 😕 And Spaceborne is the same, apparently, although it seems closer to Elite than other games (which is a good thing, at least...).

 

1 hour ago, goates said:

And one day, one of those builds will, by complete accident, actually be a finished version of the game. By my estimates, this will be sometime around the time our Sun burns out.

Wow! That fast?  I suspect it will be released one day...

...before the Universe achieves zero entropy. 🥱

1 minute ago, Daube said:

but you can't actually travel IN the ship, contrary to Star Citizen in which you are, at any point in time, a character going through its environment.

I admit to not being sure of the exact distinction from many other games...

Don't we travel in our ships and through the environment in Elite Dangerous? No Mans Sky? The X series....?

Actually, speaking of the X-series, I was thinking about the feeling of vastness/strangeness/wonder in playing those games, and how relatively sterile and bland things seemed as I ran through the Star citizen world last night, with the NPC's all standing rigidly on tables and chairs while staring sightlessly ahead....

Meanwhile in chat, all anyone was talking about was what was not working, who was stuck where, and what mission they could not complete because XYZ.

It felt like somebody had thrown unlimited money at an interesting but still not playable tech demo, creating a not-all-that-unique world that felt much too safely formulaic.

On the other hand, I still feel a sense of total awe when looking at the X-series, even if I find it all a bit too complex for my widdle' brain.

The series practically oozes creativity and imagination. X-series aliens are not humans in makeup. They are Aliens!