theyarecomingforyou wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 21:08:
Troll. Troll. Troll. Troll. Troll.

No worries, you can call me a troll, it's not like anybody can't see the starry eye fan boi you are with the constant excuses your parrot from CR.

lol.

Peeeling wrote on Oct 14, 2016, 08:06:
Good ol' Brockian Ultra-Cricket syndrome :)

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Brockian_Ultra-Cricket that just made the thread. I won't have to laugh for the rest of the day.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Oct 14, 2016, 07:51:

Peeeling wrote on Oct 14, 2016, 07:09:
Just to clarify: it's not my contention that SC (by which I mean the vision of SC they've allowed fans to conjure in their heads over the years) would be done by now if it had been done properly.

What I'm saying is that if it had been done properly, everyone (including me) would, right now, be happily flying our ships around a huge multiplayer persistent universe, getting out and walking around space stations, driving around planets, trading, doing missions, upgrading our ships - and I can say that with confidence because Elite has already done most of that on a tiny fraction of the budget.

I own Elite: Dangerous and they're not even in the same league. Same with No Man's Sky - it may have a huge universe but if there is so little to do there then it doesn't have any staying power. CIG is developing the game with the big picture in mind, basing it around an expansive lore and extremely involved gameplay mechanics. However, that doesn't come overnight. WoW took years after release to become a worthwhile game and even then it relied heavily on rinse and repeat fetch missions.

Owning both Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen I can say with confidence that I much prefer the route being taken by CIG. It's not about a sprint, it's about a marathon. They're developing a game that will be actively played for a decade, not something that will quickly lose its appeal. According to Steam there are less than 6,000 people playing per day - more people are playing DayZ and Borderlands 2, older games that have replayability and a community. Look at Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - it has over half a million daily players. That's what CIG is looking to achieve with Star Citizen and rushing the game out is a great way to kill off any chance of that happening.

Good ol' Brockian Ultra-Cricket syndrome

You can play E:D, but you find it boring because there isn't enough to do yet. In SC you can, as of right now, do even less, but you aren't bored by it because you can't actually play it yet. So you're still free to imagine how exciting it will be to play when that eventually happens. I remember that same feeling when I was a kid coming up to Christmas: so utterly, unshakeably convinced that the toy I'd seen on telly was going to be the coolest thing ever that I would sit and pore over the Argos catalogue with a magnifying glass rather than play with the toys I actually had.

The point you seem to be missing is that E:D is taking a much better, cheaper, more efficient route to the end product YOU want. You're absolutely right about it being a marathon, you're just wrong about which title has been trying (and failing) to sprint.

This comment was edited on Oct 14, 2016, 10:13.

Peeeling wrote on Oct 14, 2016, 07:09:
Just to clarify: it's not my contention that SC (by which I mean the vision of SC they've allowed fans to conjure in their heads over the years) would be done by now if it had been done properly.

What I'm saying is that if it had been done properly, everyone (including me) would, right now, be happily flying our ships around a huge multiplayer persistent universe, getting out and walking around space stations, driving around planets, trading, doing missions, upgrading our ships - and I can say that with confidence because Elite has already done most of that on a tiny fraction of the budget.

I own Elite: Dangerous and they're not even in the same league. Same with No Man's Sky - it may have a huge universe but if there is so little to do there then it doesn't have any staying power. CIG is developing the game with the big picture in mind, basing it around an expansive lore and extremely involved gameplay mechanics. However, that doesn't come overnight. WoW took years after release to become a worthwhile game and even then it relied heavily on rinse and repeat fetch missions.

Owning both Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen I can say with confidence that I much prefer the route being taken by CIG. It's not about a sprint, it's about a marathon. They're developing a game that will be actively played for a decade, not something that will quickly lose its appeal. According to Steam there are less than 6,000 people playing per day - more people are playing DayZ and Borderlands 2, older games that have replayability and a community. Look at Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - it has over half a million daily players. That's what CIG is looking to achieve with Star Citizen and rushing the game out is a great way to kill off any chance of that happening.

"The amount of gameplay that a single planet will produce will be more than most games."

I'm assuming you're including all mobile titles in that 'most games' statement.

CJ_Parker wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 22:30:
It's not coming together at all in 3.0. They have revealed at CitizenCon that travel to multiple star systems, which is the most basic essence and whole point of the game, won't be out before 4.0. And 4.0 won't be here before early 2018 at the very earliest (very optimistic estimate).

Even if they released all 100 systems today it wouldn't make the game enjoyable, as you still need the gameplay there to maintain interest. That's why they're focusing on building out one star system to full fidelity, all the while developing the gameplay mechanics (mining, refuelling, escort, salvage, repair, farming, rescue, etc). CIG has the ability to quickly put out all the systems now using their procedural planets technology - they demoed how quick it is to put together planets and landing zones - but they're looking to iterate and incorporate community feedback.

The release of 3.0 brings with it the first star system, an expansion of the large Crusader sector we already have. It brings subsumption, meaning AI characters that will populate the universe. It brings procedural planets which can be freely explored by players. It brings the first iteration of the cargo mechanic, creating a viable non-combat role. It brings the new netcode and performance optimisations, which are needed due to the serious performance issues affecting the PU currently. The aim is for there to be enough content in a particular system that players won't need to travel to other systems to enjoy the game. As we've seen with NMS and Elite: Dangerous, if there's not enough gameplay there it doesn't matter how many systems you have.

The amount of gameplay that a single planet will produce will be more than most games. However, that doesn't come overnight and each new gameplay mechanic added has to be tested and iterated upon. If you don't see the potential of the game then that's fair enough but millions of people do.

Just to clarify: it's not my contention that SC (by which I mean the vision of SC they've allowed fans to conjure in their heads over the years) would be done by now if it had been done properly.

What I'm saying is that if it had been done properly, everyone (including me) would, right now, be happily flying our ships around a huge multiplayer persistent universe, getting out and walking around space stations, driving around planets, trading, doing missions, upgrading our ships - and I can say that with confidence because Elite has already done most of that on a tiny fraction of the budget.

Now, before anyone drops the F-bomb, the right time to pursue fidelity as a goal in itself is AFTER you've solved critical path. Until you do that, you have no idea what level of fidelity you can afford or even want. Do players really WANT lengthy, unskippable animations for clambering in and out? Can you ACTUALLY transmit a couple of gigs worth of hi-res texture damage data to every client entering a system full of ships?

Whatever you may think of it as an experience, Elite has done a fantastic job of pursuing critical path. The core is there, and expansions are now building upon that. Imagine how exciting it would be if SC were at the place Elite is now - except with $115m dollars still in the bank to fund further development and expansion.

But that's not what's happened. Instead, fidelity has led the charge with nary a nod to practicality or even desirability, akin to employing the damage model of Sniper Elite to Overwatch. Critical path has been treated as a nuisance, ignored in favour of this insanely wasteful 'modular development' strategy.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 20:46:

grudgebearer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 18:43:
How is anything that has been released by CIG so far, anywhere close to the WoW alpha, much less the beta?

You have a hangar where you can look at the polygons you've spent money on, and a box in space where you can fly a limited number of ships around and shoot things. Other than an exercise in flight mechanics, what has actually been released to the backers that shows the project is actually on track to completing the proposed project plan?

The hangar was the initial module, followed by Arena Commander (which introduced flight, combat and racing), the Social Module (introducing the first planetside location and social hub) and the Persistent Universe (which introduced multi-crew ships, local physics grids, 64-bit precision, missions, repair, FPS combat, currency, shopping and refuelling mechanics, etc). Star Marine is due out imminently, which will hone the FPS mechanics. Alpha 3.0 is due out later this year / early next year, which will introduce procedural planets, cargo mechanics, trading, etc.

Last year at CitizenCon in October they showed off Alpha 2.0 and it was released in December of that year. The time from being revealed to being playable was relatively short. In other words we'll soon have what was showed off here. From there each patch will be more substantial and take the game that much closer to where it needs to go.

jdreyer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 17:42:
The tech is coming along nicely, sure. So was No Man's Sky's tech.

With NMS the developers deliberately concealed the gameplay mechanics and misrepresented what the game was. With SC the developers have been very openly and working with the community to develop features. They couldn't be further apart.

jdreyer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 17:42:
The question is, will they have enough funds to finish it? I've been amazed at their ability to pull in cash, but their progress has been slowww, and that money is going to dry up at some point. They've got at least another year of work on the engine, and years of work for the content. Do they have years of funding? Will they continue to get "donations" to the tune of $30M a year? It's got to start to decline at some point.

The game is consistently pulling in $30m each year, which is easily enough to sustain development and more. As the game gets closer to release it will attract more people who were unwilling to make a speculative purchase like the early backers. Certainly it's reasonable to question the sustainability of the funding but momentum has only been building and we still haven't had the Squadron 42 reveal. For now it's simply not a concern.

They've got over a million backers already. And this is a niche game, not Call of Duty. How many more do you think are out there?

NasWulf wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 21:51:

grudgebearer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 21:05:
.... I'm sorry, but even in buggy state of WoW's alpha, it was far more than what CIG has released so far.

By this statement I don't think you were in the WoW Alpha, at lease not in the first year. I could be wrong, but the early days of the WoW Alpha was mostly testing the systems. Zones were mostly barren with no content, cities hubs were barren, the map was just a giant camera pull out over head view of the entire zones (there was no paper maps), it was very unpolished and not alot to do but run around and test systems as they patched them in. Yes over time the Alpha turned into what you might have seen as it grew into the Beta, but in no way was the early days of the WoW Alpha more feature complete, like all alphas.

I understand the mentality now a days that a Alpha is the "beta" and the Beta is the "demo" but it was not like that back then.

Which is still more content and progress in an alpha state than Star Citizen currently has after 4-5 years of development. None of the myriad of interconnected systems, from science, to trading, ground combat, to questing, to commerce exist in an interactive state, there isn't even a basic framework that's been shown to exist for all of these features to function in a persistent mmo experience that supports hundreds of players. Hangar module, Arena commander, social module, none of those show functionality on any scale that is anything close to what will be necessary for Star Citizen to meet the proposed goals.

Even the most optimistic person with any knowledge of even small software development projects can see that even an alpha of Star Citizen is several years away at best given the level of progress that has been revealed. That is unless they redefine what "alpha" means in terms of software development. This "alpha 3.0" mock up demo that they release, is nowhere near what a true alpha of Star Citizen will need to be before they can successfully move on to an actual beta, there are just too many promised features that only exist as partially thought out concepts.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 21:12:
The mechanics are being built up over time but there's been substantial progress and Alpha 3.0 is really where the game starts to come together.

It's not coming together at all in 3.0. They have revealed at CitizenCon that travel to multiple star systems, which is the most basic essence and whole point of the game, won't be out before 4.0. And 4.0 won't be here before early 2018 at the very earliest (very optimistic estimate).
So, we already know right now that they will still be at less than 1% of the full scope PU delivery by early/mid 2018.
Less than 1%... guaranteed for the next ~18 months and you still pee your fancy pants in excitement over their awesome progress? Duuuuude?

grudgebearer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 21:05:
.... I'm sorry, but even in buggy state of WoW's alpha, it was far more than what CIG has released so far.

By this statement I don't think you were in the WoW Alpha, at lease not in the first year. I could be wrong, but the early days of the WoW Alpha was mostly testing the systems. Zones were mostly barren with no content, cities hubs were barren, the map was just a giant camera pull out over head view of the entire zones (there was no paper maps), it was very unpolished and not alot to do but run around and test systems as they patched them in. Yes over time the Alpha turned into what you might have seen as it grew into the Beta, but in no way was the early days of the WoW Alpha more feature complete, like all alphas.

I understand the mentality now a days that a Alpha is the "beta" and the Beta is the "demo" but it was not like that back then.

grudgebearer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 21:05:
But none of that is a beta, or even an alpha of Star Citizen or Squadron 42. It's a collection of individual systems, that are not connected in any way to one another. I'm sorry, but even in buggy state of WoW's alpha, it was far more than what CIG has released so far. Given the time that has been spent so far on development, there's no way that they get to any sort of actual alpha of either game that is even close to including all of the features that were promised in either, before 2018.

Squadron 42 is being developed behind closed doors so as not to ruin the impact, so that's separate. As for Star Citizen, you're right that it's not yet in beta - that's why it's called Alpha 3.0. The mechanics are being built up over time but there's been substantial progress and Alpha 3.0 is really where the game starts to come together. CIG has had to build up the studio on the fly and only now is content creation starting to get going.

So yes, the game is going to take a lot longer still. That's not in dispute.

Dacron wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 20:10:
Just enjoy their fan boi responses. I remember believing in DNF just as much, and that was by a proven studio. Who had to give away development like Chris Roberts did with his previous games, whilst having less of a name/resources as 3d realms.

Troll. Troll. Troll. Troll. Troll.

DNF was developed behind closed doors, there was no interaction with the community, it went years without any progress updates and you want to pretend that has any relevance to Star Citizen? If that's your benchmark for comparison then why not use Team Fortress 2? There the developers went quiet for years with little interaction but then completely retooled the game and created one of the most popular games ever.

Other games that were delayed: Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Unreal Tournament, Halo, Metro: Last Light, Bioshock Infinite, GTA V, etc. Delays don't make a game bad. You also have to factor in that CIG had five employees when the game was revealed in 2012, then 2013 had 48, 2014 had 161, 2015 had 250 and 2016 has 360. A lot of the development time has been concepting and building the various studios. The expansion has been exponential rather than linear, meaning that a year's worth of progress now is substantially different to the first year of development.

But I know you're not interested in a sincere discussion. So keep on trolling.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 20:46:
The hangar was the initial module, followed by Arena Commander (which introduced flight, combat and racing), the Social Module (introducing the first planetside location and social hub) and the Persistent Universe (which introduced multi-crew ships, local physics grids, 64-bit precision, missions, repair, FPS combat, currency, shopping and refuelling mechanics, etc). Star Marine is due out imminently, which will hone the FPS mechanics. Alpha 3.0 is due out later this year / early next year, which will introduce procedural planets, cargo mechanics, trading, etc.

But none of that is a beta, or even an alpha of Star Citizen or Squadron 42. It's a collection of individual systems, that are not connected in any way to one another. I'm sorry, but even in buggy state of WoW's alpha, it was far more than what CIG has released so far. Given the time that has been spent so far on development, there's no way that they get to any sort of actual alpha of either game that is even close to including all of the features that were promised in either, before 2018.

grudgebearer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 18:43:
How is anything that has been released by CIG so far, anywhere close to the WoW alpha, much less the beta?

You have a hangar where you can look at the polygons you've spent money on, and a box in space where you can fly a limited number of ships around and shoot things. Other than an exercise in flight mechanics, what has actually been released to the backers that shows the project is actually on track to completing the proposed project plan?

The hangar was the initial module, followed by Arena Commander (which introduced flight, combat and racing), the Social Module (introducing the first planetside location and social hub) and the Persistent Universe (which introduced multi-crew ships, local physics grids, 64-bit precision, missions, repair, FPS combat, currency, shopping and refuelling mechanics, etc). Star Marine is due out imminently, which will hone the FPS mechanics. Alpha 3.0 is due out later this year / early next year, which will introduce procedural planets, cargo mechanics, trading, etc.

Last year at CitizenCon in October they showed off Alpha 2.0 and it was released in December of that year. The time from being revealed to being playable was relatively short. In other words we'll soon have what was showed off here. From there each patch will be more substantial and take the game that much closer to where it needs to go.

jdreyer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 17:42:
The tech is coming along nicely, sure. So was No Man's Sky's tech.

With NMS the developers deliberately concealed the gameplay mechanics and misrepresented what the game was. With SC the developers have been very openly and working with the community to develop features. They couldn't be further apart.

jdreyer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 17:42:
The question is, will they have enough funds to finish it? I've been amazed at their ability to pull in cash, but their progress has been slowww, and that money is going to dry up at some point. They've got at least another year of work on the engine, and years of work for the content. Do they have years of funding? Will they continue to get "donations" to the tune of $30M a year? It's got to start to decline at some point.

The game is consistently pulling in $30m each year, which is easily enough to sustain development and more. As the game gets closer to release it will attract more people who were unwilling to make a speculative purchase like the early backers. Certainly it's reasonable to question the sustainability of the funding but momentum has only been building and we still haven't had the Squadron 42 reveal. For now it's simply not a concern.

grudgebearer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 18:43:

How is anything that has been released by CIG so far, anywhere close to the WoW alpha, much less the beta?

You are asking a logical question to a group bathing in their own delusions.

Just enjoy their fan boi responses. I remember believing in DNF just as much, and that was by a proven studio. Who had to give away development like Chris Roberts did with his previous games, whilst having less of a name/resources as 3d realms.

I'll deal in facts, them in fantasy/desire. It sure is amusing observing from the outside, especially if its the same wulf in for 5 figures, lol. I have rifles worth that much that actually exist.

grudgebearer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 18:43:
How is anything that has been released by CIG so far, anywhere close to the WoW alpha, much less the beta?

IDK about you but what I remember of the WoW alpha was bugs, barren content, wipes and resets, hub areas incomplete, lack of quests, so on ... why, because it was an Alpha. Am I saying CIG is lacking in content? yes .. why, because its an Alpha same as any Alpha out there. Yes the WoW Beta most people got to play was almost feature complete .. but to say the WoW Alpha (in the beginning) was anywhere near what the Beta was is untruthful.

I was also comparing the development times as well and if CIG releases SQ42 in the next 6 months the time frames are comparative.

NasWulf wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 17:09:

The 2003 WoW Alpha was closed and the 2004 Beta was open, WoW was announced as in development in 2001, so it took 2 years to have an internal Alpha and 3 years to have a closed Beta, with a 4.5 development period.

How is anything that has been released by CIG so far, anywhere close to the WoW alpha, much less the beta?

You have a hangar where you can look at the polygons you've spent money on, and a box in space where you can fly a limited number of ships around and shoot things. Other than an exercise in flight mechanics, what has actually been released to the backers that shows the project is actually on track to completing the proposed project plan?

jdreyer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 17:42:
One thing I will say is that spending all that money on building a community and being in constant communication is a smart move. It really keeps a lot of people from getting fed up at the long timelines.

you also have to remember, the money they spend on thier community, the youTube shows, the backer round tables, the Cons ... that is all taking out of a different money pool which is a monthly recurring funding, it's not apart of the development funding (that 129million you see on the funding site).

jdreyer wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 17:42:
The question is, will they have enough funds to finish it? I've been amazed at their ability to pull in cash, but their progress has been slowww, and that money is going to dry up at some point.

well we know how much they've raised, we don't know how much they've spent. For all we know they could still be sitting on 50mill for the rest of the development or on the flip side they could be sitting on 20bucks ...

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 15:55:

Dacron wrote on Oct 13, 2016, 11:14:
Wow, reading Naswulf losing his shit like a petulant child post after post was a great read this morning.

You must be reading different posts because the ones I've read have been perfectly reasonable. The critics here are just trying to get a rise out of people, accusing anyone who has the audacity to like the game of being delusional zealots.

Based on everything I've seen so far I have confidence that the game will end up being excellent; I also have confidence that there will be numerous more delays.

The tech is coming along nicely, sure. So was No Man's Sky's tech.

The question is, will they have enough funds to finish it? I've been amazed at their ability to pull in cash, but their progress has been slowww, and that money is going to dry up at some point. They've got at least another year of work on the engine, and years of work for the content. Do they have years of funding? Will they continue to get "donations" to the tune of $30M a year? It's got to start to decline at some point.

One thing I will say is that spending all that money on building a community and being in constant communication is a smart move. It really keeps a lot of people from getting fed up at the long timelines.