6 years ago I was 20 years old in college. I got so excited a new a mmo to play in space and drank the kool-aid. Dropped $150, played with my super cool ship in my hanger at 15~fps having a good time looking at all the details on my aegis gladius, watching the stairs come out of the ship and so on.
Eventually I could fly it, and it was cool but of course it was alpha and there was nothing to do except drink more kool-aid. More ships, more promises, more stars, more space.
Now, my same ship can land on planets, I can walk around and it's great. Honestly it's pretty cool. The only issue is now I am 26, married, spend 75% of my awake time working or with my wife. I don't want an mmo.
I am no longer the target demographic, and the majority of the early adaptors are not either.
No better way to rustle jimmies than to mention the likely truth that Star Citizen is vaporware and will never see the light of day. The more time passes the more likely that is. Anyone not invested in its success can look at the timeline of moves by the company up to now, the scope of the project and its bloat, and especially the CEO, and reach the same conclusion. Nonetheless, I expect to have this same argument with a starry-eyed dreamer 5 years from now.
I don't think it will end up being vaporware, but I do think it will end up like Duke Nukem Forever.
If you're not familiar with that tale: in the mid-90s Duke Nukem 3D was one of the biggest FPS games, and the developer was lucky enough to be independent so they kept most of the money from sales of it. They then used this money to independently develop the sequel: Duke Nukem Forever. It was going to use the Quake engine to be in full 3D, but then Quake 2 came out and they switched to that engine, then better engines came out and they kept switching. Without a publisher to force them to release they just kept re-building the game with more and more features on newer engines.
Eventually their hoard of money ran out and they went bankrupt. Their assets were bought out by another developer who took the work that had been completed on the latest iteration, quickly slapped it together into a semi-cohesive but shippable game, and shoved it out the door. We got Duke Nukem Forever in the end, but as a shadow of what was promised over the years.
I am not a hardcore supporter of Star Citizen, and I have not put any money towards the game. But I have played the Alpha during their free weekends, and they are slowly making me a believer.
I played a game with three of my friends where we loaded into a space station, jumped into a multicrew ship, and headed out to find our way among the stars. We were able to do things like jump out of the ship on EVAs into open space, jam speeder bikes into the back of other ships and drop them out over the surface of a moon, and generally do awesome (read: silly/idiotic) space adventure stuff.
It's not really a 'game' yet, but they are pretty clearly putting together some sort of experience that is very much playable. It's not enough to make me spend money, but it's closer than anything else I've seen in the genre for sure.
As someone who hasn't looked at it closely, does it still feel like a set of diverse tech demos or is it beginning to come together as a cohesive experience?
I think it’s pretty cool. I got the basic pack ($30) as a gift and I’ve had fun flying around in space. I’d probably be a lot more invested and defensive if I’d thrown $2,000+ into the project, though.
I was astounded when I learned that a bunch of my colleagues, fellow game developers with many years of experience and who have helped ship several AAA games, are big supporters of Star Citizen and have donated money to it on several occasions.
Personally, I think it looks really cool but so very optimistic that I wouldn't put any money towards it.
Considering games studios will spend ~4 years making an AAA game that they might only announce a few months before release, I don't think they're doing too badly. Latest public release I'm really impressed with -- seems like stuff is starting to get tied together really well, and it doesn't feel like a game from 6 years ago.
Even if they never officially release (which I guess could be considered "vaporware", although as you can already download and play it.......) -- it was a fun project to back for my $20 several years ago or whatever. When I see the arguments about how money's just going into the CEO's pockets? Yeah, and like the pockets of the employees at least three large dev studios across the world. I essentially bought one of them a nice meal.
I watched the game play demo they presented at the recent Citizencon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fkMHOyswU). As I don't follow Star Citizens development closely, it was a fascinating view into that universe and the developers behind it. To me it felt they're getting lost in all the little details on the planets, instead of concentrating a bit more on the space and its use with space ships. After all, selling space ships is what they make a lot of money with.
They're talking about an incredible level of detail on the ground (e.g. a working subway system, physically correct ice cubes in drinks and plans to receive damage, when you're in a room with a fire, which consumes the available oxygen), but there was literally nothing about new stuff in space (or is that already completely done and working?).
Given their ambitions I hope they succeed long term and will continuously develop the game, similar to EVE Online.
That’s been one of my red flags too, the lack of significant progress on fundamental parts of the game, such as the flight model and even just the combat AI. Nevermind the parts that will require real groundbreaking work, such as the game-wide economy, AI, and shipmate AI. Nevermind the balancing work. That they’re even thinking about how ice cubes are modeled really seems to indicate that work is expanding to fill the time.
Expanding to spend the money that they've raised, perhaps? After all if they've already raised it, it doesn't really matter what they're spending it on. In normal game dev they would have to make a game that people wanted to buy.
As someone who does follow Star Citizen closely (but isn't a backer or otherwise motivated for the project to succeed), I couldn't disagree more.
They got "ships in space" working years ago. This release was celebrating their latest tech, "OCS," which is designed to reduce their in-memory working set. The big benefit of OCS? They're more than doubling the size of their world, adding a planet, gigantic new city, and three new moons.
Of course they're showing off planet-side content. They've had ships flying around in space for literally years now. The big new improvement to that (a new flight model) was demoed in a booth on the show floor, where people could experience it, not in the splashy keynote session.
MVPs are for testing product-market fit. CIG (the makers of Star Citizen) proved their fit long ago. They have a successful product that's about to cross $200 million in revenue. Now they need to turn that product-market fit into successful recurring revenue. And that requires doing something that captures the attention of a market that is notoriously fickle, negative, and entitled.
Immersive systems-based gameplay with things like physically-correct ice cubes is the niche CIG has chosen, and it's been their niche since the Kickstarter. Who knows if the excitement they've generated so far will last. But it's obviously done very well for them so far. It's no surprise they've doubled down on it.
I backed the game in the kickstarter, and I’m fine with logging in now and then to see how it progresses. The results they show are breathtaking.
And yes I understand that this is a game that might actually never make it, but the niche you mentioned is very close to a lot of people’s hearts. So we just keep hoping.
I cannot stop laughing at this. Meanwhile Elite Dangerous is iterating effectively. The difference in philosophy/approach between the two teams with somewhat similar end objectives is stark.
As someone who doesn't play but has watched it through its development, I feel like the developers have a fatal weakness for shiny objects (not that anyone needed me to tell them this). I'd be much more bullish on such an iteratively developed mega game if it started out focusing on an MVP and added stuff from there, instead of this discordant feature vomit. I don't think there's anything wrong with the iterative model for game development (even "boxed" games are doing it; see Overwatch, Diablo etc.) but it needs to be managed sanely and developers shouldn't be afraid to redo stuff when the standard changes or get too caught up in sunk costs.
Just look at Elite Dangerous or Rim World. Amazing, fantastic games that started off very primitive, with the core of the gameplay at least prototyped. And now, a couple to a few times a year, in both games, we get an update that makes it more awesome.
And those effects are compounded - both games are far superior than other games in their genres because they steadily improve and focus on the core gameplay features.
Elite dangerous has had a working game for 6 years and has released at least 15 pretty big updates (with another one only like 2 weeks away). Star citizen is focusing on ice cubes and the rest of the game isn't even really a playable game.
I feel bad for people who are thousands deep into SC.
Difference is that a lot of people don’t care about ED just because they released a flight simulator first. So for me ED will always just be that.
The promise of what SC wants to be is what is keeping people excited. 6 years in and the demos are still amazing. It’s nice to have a game to hang your hopes to.
If we actually get to play it one day I’ll br even happier :p
All this has done was to get Chris Roberts out of debt and now seriously rich, get his wife to star in a film next to Gary Oldman and give his brother a cushy job. Delivering a game at this point would be killing the golden goose. Chris is paying himself literally millions from your money and presumably laughing all the way to bank. He has nothing to gain from ending development as long as you're paying his exorbitant salary.
All this dough and no time to work on the Linux port they promised from a long-met stretch goal, or the only reason I originally backed it, something I now deeply regret.
There's a lot of negativity aimed at Star Citizen, but from where I stand they are the closest to building the game that a whole lot of people want to play.
Note: Closest != close
The idea of getting a crew together to fly a large spaceship around is a foundational piece of the sci-fi narrative -- from Leviathon Wakes to Firefly, Star Wars to Star Trek. We want to play those kinds of stories, but that's a challenging game to build. Star Citizen seems to be the first game to seriously try and build it.
Do I think they'll succeed? I'm not sure. Am I really, really hoping they do? Hell yeah.
It's a game where you and your friends play as the different officers on a Star-Trek like bridge, like Helmsman, Weapons and of course Captain. Use a large TV as the main screen and use your laptops for your station. It's really fun.
Most polished maybe. Space Engineers is like minecraft in space. Some friends and I have been messing around the last two weekends. We've mostly been concerned with getting our production facilities up so I don't know how well it supports multiple crew members controlling the ship independently (i.e., turrent control vs. pilot vs. whatever else)... but then again SC doesn't have that yet either, I think.
SC is a huge disappointment for me. It is not playable yet, even though there are things to do if you log on. It looks like it has all the features of a bubble - a hype. If this had been a normal project everyone involved would be worried about whether or not they can deliver due to the continuous postponements. It is not a normal project however, people are still "buying the pitch". It's the idea of SC and the vision of SC that keep people enthusiastic, and SC are feeding the hopeful. It is however suspicious that they have changed their TOS to make them less customer (player) friendly in the "rights dep". If they finish the vision I will definitively use my license to try it out, even though they seem to take the "pay to win" concept to new highs. I very much feel that the money I have spent, though, has been lost to someone who did not succeed to deliver. That is not uncommon in early access games, and is what to expect from many projects I and others help by purchasing an early license. SC However is different, though. They seem to keep on building the hype instead of coming out clean and say it as it is. The game will most likely launch one day, but I expect it will be something completely different than originally sold to me and many many others. I hope they prove me wrong, but as of today SC is guilty of promising more than they can keep
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Eventually I could fly it, and it was cool but of course it was alpha and there was nothing to do except drink more kool-aid. More ships, more promises, more stars, more space.
Now, my same ship can land on planets, I can walk around and it's great. Honestly it's pretty cool. The only issue is now I am 26, married, spend 75% of my awake time working or with my wife. I don't want an mmo.
I am no longer the target demographic, and the majority of the early adaptors are not either.
If you're not familiar with that tale: in the mid-90s Duke Nukem 3D was one of the biggest FPS games, and the developer was lucky enough to be independent so they kept most of the money from sales of it. They then used this money to independently develop the sequel: Duke Nukem Forever. It was going to use the Quake engine to be in full 3D, but then Quake 2 came out and they switched to that engine, then better engines came out and they kept switching. Without a publisher to force them to release they just kept re-building the game with more and more features on newer engines.
Eventually their hoard of money ran out and they went bankrupt. Their assets were bought out by another developer who took the work that had been completed on the latest iteration, quickly slapped it together into a semi-cohesive but shippable game, and shoved it out the door. We got Duke Nukem Forever in the end, but as a shadow of what was promised over the years.
I am not a hardcore supporter of Star Citizen, and I have not put any money towards the game. But I have played the Alpha during their free weekends, and they are slowly making me a believer.
I played a game with three of my friends where we loaded into a space station, jumped into a multicrew ship, and headed out to find our way among the stars. We were able to do things like jump out of the ship on EVAs into open space, jam speeder bikes into the back of other ships and drop them out over the surface of a moon, and generally do awesome (read: silly/idiotic) space adventure stuff.
It's not really a 'game' yet, but they are pretty clearly putting together some sort of experience that is very much playable. It's not enough to make me spend money, but it's closer than anything else I've seen in the genre for sure.
Personally, I think it looks really cool but so very optimistic that I wouldn't put any money towards it.
Even if they never officially release (which I guess could be considered "vaporware", although as you can already download and play it.......) -- it was a fun project to back for my $20 several years ago or whatever. When I see the arguments about how money's just going into the CEO's pockets? Yeah, and like the pockets of the employees at least three large dev studios across the world. I essentially bought one of them a nice meal.
They're talking about an incredible level of detail on the ground (e.g. a working subway system, physically correct ice cubes in drinks and plans to receive damage, when you're in a room with a fire, which consumes the available oxygen), but there was literally nothing about new stuff in space (or is that already completely done and working?).
Given their ambitions I hope they succeed long term and will continuously develop the game, similar to EVE Online.
They got "ships in space" working years ago. This release was celebrating their latest tech, "OCS," which is designed to reduce their in-memory working set. The big benefit of OCS? They're more than doubling the size of their world, adding a planet, gigantic new city, and three new moons.
Of course they're showing off planet-side content. They've had ships flying around in space for literally years now. The big new improvement to that (a new flight model) was demoed in a booth on the show floor, where people could experience it, not in the splashy keynote session.
MVPs are for testing product-market fit. CIG (the makers of Star Citizen) proved their fit long ago. They have a successful product that's about to cross $200 million in revenue. Now they need to turn that product-market fit into successful recurring revenue. And that requires doing something that captures the attention of a market that is notoriously fickle, negative, and entitled.
Immersive systems-based gameplay with things like physically-correct ice cubes is the niche CIG has chosen, and it's been their niche since the Kickstarter. Who knows if the excitement they've generated so far will last. But it's obviously done very well for them so far. It's no surprise they've doubled down on it.
I backed the game in the kickstarter, and I’m fine with logging in now and then to see how it progresses. The results they show are breathtaking.
And yes I understand that this is a game that might actually never make it, but the niche you mentioned is very close to a lot of people’s hearts. So we just keep hoping.
I cannot stop laughing at this. Meanwhile Elite Dangerous is iterating effectively. The difference in philosophy/approach between the two teams with somewhat similar end objectives is stark.
And those effects are compounded - both games are far superior than other games in their genres because they steadily improve and focus on the core gameplay features.
Elite dangerous has had a working game for 6 years and has released at least 15 pretty big updates (with another one only like 2 weeks away). Star citizen is focusing on ice cubes and the rest of the game isn't even really a playable game.
I feel bad for people who are thousands deep into SC.
The promise of what SC wants to be is what is keeping people excited. 6 years in and the demos are still amazing. It’s nice to have a game to hang your hopes to.
If we actually get to play it one day I’ll br even happier :p
Note: Closest != close
The idea of getting a crew together to fly a large spaceship around is a foundational piece of the sci-fi narrative -- from Leviathon Wakes to Firefly, Star Wars to Star Trek. We want to play those kinds of stories, but that's a challenging game to build. Star Citizen seems to be the first game to seriously try and build it.
Do I think they'll succeed? I'm not sure. Am I really, really hoping they do? Hell yeah.
It's a game where you and your friends play as the different officers on a Star-Trek like bridge, like Helmsman, Weapons and of course Captain. Use a large TV as the main screen and use your laptops for your station. It's really fun.
That being said, there's neither PvE content on the scale to need that, nor PvP density to support it either.
Artemis Bridge Simulator [1] is nearly a decade old now, and has several clones and derivatives, including AAA VR title Star Trek Bridge Crew.
[1] https://artemisspaceshipbridge.com/