Prez wrote on Oct 23, 2024, 10:07:
Razumen, do you realize that you disagreed with me by essentially saying the same thing that I did? The only difference is "some" vs. "many". This isn't a pissing contest to determine who has been playing games longer, it was to give context to explain that I am aware of gaming trends as they have been for decades.

The fact that you are asking for a citation for the observance of a trend over the last 40 years reminds me that when talking with a cultist one can expect that calm reason and civil discussion are not on the table.

"but those that do, do so to indicate that a beta is soon to follow. Usually within 6 months. "
That isn't a trend, or a generalization, it's a hard claim with no basis in reality or fact.

It's funny that you're talking about a calm reason while trying to argue that phrases mean what they don't. And I'm no cultist, I have my own criticisms of the game, but I don't fall into the ridiculous hyperbole that you're spouting.

It was an elective in my senior year in highschool in New Jersey. It wasn't very involved; in fact you could say it was pretty BASIC...

See what I did there? That was pretty funny right?

Prez wrote on Oct 23, 2024, 10:59:
I took a computer class in '88. It was on a Commodore 64 using BASIC. Until then I had only used consoles (I begged my parents to get me an Atari 2600 for Christmas in '77). The first thing I wanted to do was program games. 🙂

Where? At at the local community center? In 1984 I was taking computer classes at the local community college on an IBM 370.

@ Rhiader

I took a computer class in '88. It was on a Commodore 64 using BASIC. Until then I had only used consoles (I begged my parents to get me an Atari 2600 for Christmas in '77). The first thing I wanted to do was program games. 🙂

Prez wrote on Oct 22, 2024, 10:37:
I've been a gamer since 1977,

Damn beats me, I count my start as 1980 when I started playing Avatar.

And Riahderymnmaddog, I turned 15 in 1977.

Numinar wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 05:59:
Game might end up being amazing. I'll buy it then.

It might. But I wouldn't bet on it. However, I agree if they deliver something which actually provides a quality experience I'll play it.

Bitcoin will be $1 million by 2026!

Razumen, do you realize that you disagreed with me by essentially saying the same thing that I did? The only difference is "some" vs. "many". This isn't a pissing contest to determine who has been playing games longer, it was to give context to explain that I am aware of gaming trends as they have been for decades.

The fact that you are asking for a citation for the observance of a trend over the last 40 years reminds me that when talking with a cultist one can expect that calm reason and civil discussion are not on the table.

Prez wrote on Oct 22, 2024, 10:37:

Razumen wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 10:19:

Desalus wrote on Oct 20, 2024, 20:54:
It should not take three years to go from feature complete to release. So either that announcement last year was complete bullshit, or they are incompetent.

Armchair devs talking about game development terms like they know what they mean. LAWL

I no longer care about if Squadron 42 ever comes out, and I find it slightly amusing to watch this insanity unfold in real time but... Are you serious?

Many of us are not developers (I know that I am not) but you don't have to be a developer (armchair or otherwise) to learn to understand terms based on historical precedent. I've been a gamer since 1977, and I have closely followed the game industry (you could say that it became a passion of mine) around 1998. Not every project will announce that it is "feature complete", but those that do, do so to indicate that a beta is soon to follow. Usually within 6 months. "Beta" used to have a specific meaning as it was a different stage in the development process, but starting over a decade ago "beta" became synonymous with "demo". It could be said that a lot of games have replaced "beta" with "early access". A game in "alpha" is referred to as such because it is extremely early and loads of stuff are not implemented or are not going to work right. The "feature complete" announcement signals that the project will be moving into "beta" presently. If that happened at CIG, it was an unannounced, internal beta. But if you are going to do that, there is no reason for a "feature complete" announcement at all. I don't care what a guy's pedigree is; you don't get to redefine terms that have been in common usage for decades. Likely he was stalling/distracting from the ludicrous development length with terms that give a vague indication that progress is being made. Essentially, as many of us expected, for CIG "feature complete" means literally nothing and is likely just a familiar-sounding but non-committal buzzword that hopefully will keep his cultists from turning on him and lynching him for this amusing but ultimately pathetic debacle.

*not every project will announce that it is "feature complete", but those that do, do so to indicate that a beta is soon to follow.*

Okay... Citation needed bro.

I've been playing games longer than you, and most games don't even bother saying they're feature complete, because they know consumers have no idea what it means, or will twist it to mean whatever they want, like you're doing.

Prez wrote on Oct 22, 2024, 10:37:

Razumen wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 10:19:

Desalus wrote on Oct 20, 2024, 20:54:
It should not take three years to go from feature complete to release. So either that announcement last year was complete bullshit, or they are incompetent.

Armchair devs talking about game development terms like they know what they mean. LAWL

I no longer care about if Squadron 42 ever comes out, and I find it slightly amusing to watch this insanity unfold in real time but... Are you serious?

Many of us are not developers (I know that I am not) but you don't have to be a developer (armchair or otherwise) to learn to understand terms based on historical precedent. I've been a gamer since 1977, and I have closely followed the game industry (you could say that it became a passion of mine) around 1998. Not every project will announce that it is "feature complete", but those that do, do so to indicate that a beta is soon to follow. Usually within 6 months. "Beta" used to have a specific meaning as it was a different stage in the development process, but starting over a decade ago "beta" became synonymous with "demo". It could be said that a lot of games have replaced "beta" with "early access". A game in "alpha" is referred to as such because it is extremely early and loads of stuff are not implemented or are not going to work right. The "feature complete" announcement signals that the project will be moving into "beta" presently. If that happened at CIG, it was an unannounced, internal beta. But if you are going to do that, there is no reason for a "feature complete" announcement at all. I don't care what a guy's pedigree is; you don't get to redefine terms that have been in common usage for decades. Likely he was stalling/distracting from the ludicrous development length with terms that give a vague indication that progress is being made. Essentially, as many of us expected, for CIG "feature complete" means literally nothing and is likely just a familiar-sounding but non-committal buzzword that hopefully will keep his cultists from turning on him and lynching him for this amusing but ultimately pathetic debacle.

bRUH? My mom turt 21 in 1977 and I am like 50 now. Sick! you have been around to see it all. I thought I had, but you just took that away from me as I didn't even get access to a VIC-20 until I was almost 9, and I had to "code in basic" any games i wanted to play, (RUN Magazine) and I didn't get a modem until I was 11, I remember getting a job washing windows just so I could buy a 1200baud modem and pay for a phone line, downloading California Games with it as 0 Day warez, in 1987.

Silent Bob wrote on Oct 22, 2024, 00:10:

Riahderymnmaddog wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 23:22:

Silent Bob wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 20:59:
I've been pissed off about this since my $30 Kickstarter pledge 12 years ago. But no longer. It was my own damn fault anyway for thinking that Chris Roberts had changed his ways since Freelancer.

Now I'm just sitting back and waiting for the whole thing to implode. I'll have my popcorn ready.

but did it go up in value? I bet that $30 starter package goes for $3500 today.

I checked out of curiosity and a Digital Scout is selling for $250 on some third party website.

well, that's something.

Xeth Nyrrow wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 12:50:
They are going to need a few more years just to redo the facial animations because they look quite dated now. The mouth movements when talking are way too adroit.

I was thinking about this too. All that money spent on tech with Roberts focusing on the most minute details, it's baffling why they haven't spent more time on their facial animation system. It's definitely not bad and I've certainly seen (much) worse, but it's disappointing that no one seems to be able to match the quality of facial animation Naughty Dog (who is by far the gold standard) has been doing for over a decade.

Razumen wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 10:19:

Desalus wrote on Oct 20, 2024, 20:54:
It should not take three years to go from feature complete to release. So either that announcement last year was complete bullshit, or they are incompetent.

Armchair devs talking about game development terms like they know what they mean. LAWL

I no longer care about if Squadron 42 ever comes out, and I find it slightly amusing to watch this insanity unfold in real time but... Are you serious?

Many of us are not developers (I know that I am not) but you don't have to be a developer (armchair or otherwise) to learn to understand terms based on historical precedent. I've been a gamer since 1977, and I have closely followed the game industry (you could say that it became a passion of mine) around 1998. Not every project will announce that it is "feature complete", but those that do, do so to indicate that a beta is soon to follow. Usually within 6 months. "Beta" used to have a specific meaning as it was a different stage in the development process, but starting over a decade ago "beta" became synonymous with "demo". It could be said that a lot of games have replaced "beta" with "early access". A game in "alpha" is referred to as such because it is extremely early and loads of stuff are not implemented or are not going to work right. The "feature complete" announcement signals that the project will be moving into "beta" presently. If that happened at CIG, it was an unannounced, internal beta. But if you are going to do that, there is no reason for a "feature complete" announcement at all. I don't care what a guy's pedigree is; you don't get to redefine terms that have been in common usage for decades. Likely he was stalling/distracting from the ludicrous development length with terms that give a vague indication that progress is being made. Essentially, as many of us expected, for CIG "feature complete" means literally nothing and is likely just a familiar-sounding but non-committal buzzword that hopefully will keep his cultists from turning on him and lynching him for this amusing but ultimately pathetic debacle.

This comment was edited on Oct 22, 2024, 10:48.

Games aren't apps though, gameplay features and mechanics are usually finished before all the game's assets and content are. Because those aspects are necessary for prototyping and balancing. It's very hard to create missions and content around a mechanic/s that you don't know how it will work.

That's kind of the point, though.

In a well-managed project, development is shaped like a parsnip.You have a relatively small, manageable core team that thrashes out the technology and systems, iterating quickly at minimum cost to 'find the game'. As that vision coalesces, you ramp up content production within the guardrails set by the established scope.

That didn't happen with Star Citizen. It doesn't help that it isn't a game. It's a simulation from which it was simply assumed fun would emerge if it was made complicated enough. As such, it had no natural guardrails. Anyone remember the original flight model fiasco? Everyone was gushing over how it was this incredibly detailed, high-fidelity vectored thrust system - and it was completely unflyable. So they kept all the incredibly detailed computationally expensive stuff and wrote a layer to sit on top and fly it for you. The upshot of which is that, for the low low price of man-years of work and millions of CPU cycles, streamlined, aerodynamic ships fly like mounts did in World of Warcraft before Dragonflight. Strafing around, parking in the sky at any old angle.

It's what you get when someone who thinks in movies gets behind the wheel of a game. It's all about the spectacle; there's no understanding of what makes something enjoyable to interact with. Compound that with the 'ships first, game later' funding model, and if I had to pick a number, I would guess that 60-70% of the money spent so far on this game has been wasted. Spent on code that's either no longer running or layered with fudges, and art and design that had to be reworked over and over.

That sound right to anyone else? If CDProject showed the same footage and said they'd spent five years and $200M making a space game, and it was coming out in 2026, I'd give that an approving nod and thumbs-up. And there would be an actual game.

So, from what I can tell, Citizen Con was just the same lot of promises* as all the other Citizen Cons, just in a new coat of paint?

I watched most of the Squadron 42 thingee and never seen anything that I would call next gen AAAA gameplay .... Just graphic effects and lenses flairs being over used to make it "movie like".

I don't think there was any real NPC A.I. happening, I'd say all the crew, spaceships and enemy where scripted - I did not see the 'live version', only the one Blue linked to above.

It's sad that scummy Chris Roberts has used so much other people's money to play movie director/game designer and enrich himself and family unjustly.

Desalus wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 14:14:

Desalus wrote on Oct 20, 2024, 20:54:
It should not take three years to go from feature complete to release. So either that announcement last year was complete bullshit, or they are incompetent.

Razumen wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 10:19:
Armchair devs talking about game development terms like they know what they mean. LAWL

mutantmagnet wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 10:37:
It's not bullshit for a well managed development team. It would take that long to build content with completed features.

I believe this is the common understanding of "feature complete" in SDLC: "A feature-complete version of a piece of software has all of its planned or primary features implemented but is not yet final due to bugs, performance or stability issues. This occurs at the end of alpha testing in development. Usually, feature-complete software still has to undergo beta testing and bug fixing, as well as performance or stability enhancement before it can go to release candidate, and finally gold status."

Unless they ran into some major issues, which I wouldn't be surprised if they did, I don't see why the beta test should last three years for a single player game.

Games aren't apps though, gameplay features and mechanics are usually finished before all the game's assets and content are. Because those aspects are necessary for prototyping and balancing. It's very hard to create missions and content around a mechanic/s that you don't know how it will work.

I wouldn't be surprised if the game was feature complete at one point, like say the character models, but Roberts decided that a character's butt pimple wasn't realistic enough and made them redo all the character materials. By all accounts, he's a terrible project manager and the guy REALLY needs someone to keep his aspirations in check.

Riahderymnmaddog wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 23:22:

Silent Bob wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 20:59:
I've been pissed off about this since my $30 Kickstarter pledge 12 years ago. But no longer. It was my own damn fault anyway for thinking that Chris Roberts had changed his ways since Freelancer.

Now I'm just sitting back and waiting for the whole thing to implode. I'll have my popcorn ready.

but did it go up in value? I bet that $30 starter package goes for $3500 today.

I checked out of curiosity and a Digital Scout is selling for $250 on some third party website.

Silent Bob wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 20:59:
I've been pissed off about this since my $30 Kickstarter pledge 12 years ago. But no longer. It was my own damn fault anyway for thinking that Chris Roberts had changed his ways since Freelancer.

Now I'm just sitting back and waiting for the whole thing to implode. I'll have my popcorn ready.

but did it go up in value? I bet that $30 starter package goes for $3500 today.

I've been pissed off about this since my $30 Kickstarter pledge 12 years ago. But no longer. It was my own damn fault anyway for thinking that Chris Roberts had changed his ways since Freelancer.

Now I'm just sitting back and waiting for the whole thing to implode. I'll have my popcorn ready.

Desalus wrote on Oct 20, 2024, 20:54:
It should not take three years to go from feature complete to release. So either that announcement last year was complete bullshit, or they are incompetent.

Razumen wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 10:19:
Armchair devs talking about game development terms like they know what they mean. LAWL

mutantmagnet wrote on Oct 21, 2024, 10:37:
It's not bullshit for a well managed development team. It would take that long to build content with completed features.

I believe this is the common understanding of "feature complete" in SDLC: "A feature-complete version of a piece of software has all of its planned or primary features implemented but is not yet final due to bugs, performance or stability issues. This occurs at the end of alpha testing in development. Usually, feature-complete software still has to undergo beta testing and bug fixing, as well as performance or stability enhancement before it can go to release candidate, and finally gold status."

Unless they ran into some major issues, which I wouldn't be surprised if they did, I don't see why the beta test should last three years for a single player game.