******Official Star Citizen / Squadron 42 Thread******

[jonneymendoza]

As I said earlier, I look forward to playing Star Citizen, but every time I check in on it, we are never any closer to a release....just year after year, the same stuff trotted out.

How many years have we been hearing about server meshing on here? Call me crazy, but if I was making the game, I would be making absolutely bloody sure very early on that I had a platform that can support the promises. Instead here we are 10 years down the line, and we still know if CIG is actually capable of producing a platform to support all the features and ships they've pre-sold to people.

o i hear you.

CIG are no saints and they should have developed server meshing at the beginning along with when they was making object container streaming(which is part of the server meshing work)

I think what happened was that when they launched the PU where you could walk around port oliser and grab a ship and fly in space, a lot of the backers were excited and wanted more features to be released on top of a PU game that had none of the core tech in.

So CIG just kept adding stuff into it. New planets, new moons etc etc and began adding the much needed core tech into the game starting from OBS.

What CIG should have done is not release that PU varient but just rely upon updating arena commander and the star marine add on modules and use that to test any new features in a more isolated enviornment.

Both of those game modes could have tested out new ships they ahve launched over the last 6 years and test all the new gameplay mechanics for fps on star marine.

Then they could have released PU once OBS and Server meshing is in on its infancy state with a planet or two and build on top of that.

BUt would majority of backers be happy of just having star marine and Arena commander ? Would those two game modes be enough to entice backers to spend more money to fund the game and buy new ships they cant fly in a open space enviornment?

Maybe not. I dont tink many backers would have the patience to follow and wait until say 2019 for the PU to launch with SM, OBS and a few planets on stanton. i think many would have lost patience and the money that CIG relies on would have dried up.

The core tech they are working on is not something that takes 5minutes to do. Infact, its never been done before on this scale and detail so i would argue with you and ask, What other MMO game has the same core tech and fidelity/scale as what CIG are trying to achieve(1000+ player battles in space and on foot with fast paste combat, not turn based and on a game with more than 50+ star systems and the same fidelity as SC?)

I Mean if you can name me a game right now thats out, i along most CIG backers would flock to that said game in an instance.

TDLR, CIG did thigs backwards, they should have done the core tech first and then build on top of that, but that would mean the first SC PU would have come out in 2019 ish instead of in 2014/2015

 

[humbug]

Chris Roberts is a disaster.

Yes and no.

IMO only Chris Roberts could have attempted a game like Star Citizen, despite all its faults it is an awesome game, he has made a few awesome games, but while only Chris Roberts could have made these games he's also the reason these games arrive late or in this case run on unfinished with seemingly no end in sight.

 

[mid_gen]

What other MMO game has the same core tech and fidelity/scale as what CIG are trying failing to achieve(1000+ player battles in space and on foot with fast paste combat, not turn based and on a game with more than 50+ star systems and the same fidelity as SC?)

FTFY.

10 years, and there's no evidence they can actually deliver on this promise. Instead they just keep churning out assets and more features/technical debt, hoping that this mythical server platform is someday going to support it all.

 

[wolfie138]

Infact, its never been done before on this scale and detail so i would argue with you and ask, What other MMO game has the same core tech and fidelity/scale as what CIG are trying to achieve(1000+ player battles in space and on foot with fast paste combat, not turn based and on a game with more than 50+ star systems and the same fidelity as SC?)

given the lack of progress after x years....maybe there's a reason WHY there isn't. maye they should stop flogging a deadh horse and get one crackingly good system up and running then add the others later continuous additions would add shelf life. E launched w/ something stupid like 40 billion planets or whatever, and who cares? you're never going to see 39.9999 billion of them. ever.

 

[jonneymendoza]

FTFY.

10 years, and there's no evidence they can actually deliver on this promise. Instead they just keep churning out assets and more features/technical debt, hoping that this mythical server platform is someday going to support it all.

Failing?

Please look up the word failing before editing my post.

They are infact trying to make this work.

The day CIG actually releases a statement saying they cant create basic server meshing, that is when you can say they have failed.

Anyways, as i said, they should have worked on SM first and then the assets and features after

 

[jonneymendoza]

given the lack of progress after x years....maybe there's a reason WHY there isn't. maye they should stop flogging a deadh horse and get one crackingly good system up and running then add the others later continuous additions would add shelf life. E launched w/ something stupid like 40 billion planets or whatever, and who cares? you're never going to see 39.9999 billion of them. ever.

i mean i do hope your joking.

Imagine if the likes of Rockstar etc etc read your statement and say to themselves, na its never been done before, lets not bother trying. Lets just do what others have done. Lets not innovate and try and push and shift the boundaries of gaming immersion and features..

Again, you are joking right?

 

[mid_gen]

Failing?

Please look up the word failing before editing my post.

They are infact trying to make this work.

The day CIG actually releases a statement saying they cant create basic server meshing, that is when you can say they have failed.

Anyways, as i said, they should have worked on SM first and then the assets and features after

It's 8 years since I backed the game. 8 years later, they still don't even have the basic core technology of the game working. That is failure.

I can imagine all the classic engineering failure tropes being played out. Just wait til the super smart guy who's been living and breathing server meshing for years finally burns out and quits leaving a hideously complicated, over-engineering system behind that no-one else can work with, so it gets chucked in the bin.

Won't be long now before they start talking about 'the metaverse'.....

 

[DBFmancini]

Asing the fans whether they want x or y is like asking them:

Do you like ice-cream? Of course they want more features...

But, it is the responsibility of the developers to deliver a game in a reasonable time-frame not cave in to every silly pointless whim and to add endless impactless cosmetic feature, but of course bs'ing around wasting time on pointless crap gives them an excuse never to deliver the games and keeps the $$$$$ backer gravy train rolling along - it's easier for them to milk the cult than to deliver a game, and of course they're scared that if they release people will realise that the Emporer has no clothes.

10 years+ and they have 1 STAR SYSTEM - that's CIG's take on a a huge explorable universe, and on top of that there's no persistent universe at all because their trash server infrastructure can't cope with more than 50 players...

Roberts has a History of over-promising and under-delivering, he is a dreamer who is out of control and living in echo chamber fantasy World of his own making. He is an arch narcissist and serial "course correcter"...

Truth about the "great" Chris Roberts? He hasn't released a game for 19 years...

But yea it's the backers fault for "feature creep"...

THIS 100%

As someone who has worked in a range of software engineering roles over the last 20 years this is a very plain case of scope creep/feature bloat and plain old bad project management. I've fallen into this trap many times as have teams I have managed. Ask a customer if they want more of X and chances are they will say of course, especially if they don't have to pay any extra for it.

But every new change equates to extra lines of code or changes to existing code, changes mean extra testing, testing means bugs, bugs mean fixes to the lines of code and so the cycle continues and you end up with an unmanageable codebase that sits on a foundation of sand.

I tried SC maybe 6 years ago, found nothing that I didn't feel ED was already doing better and left it, came back last year and apart from some random new additions it felt equally as sparse and broken as it did previously.

I cannot knock CR vision or belief in what he is doing, what I can do is knock the inability to project manage it properly. Its base 101 stuff. Don't overpromise and under-deliver, don't add features that you have not validated will actually add anything of substance, don't share roadmaps you know you have no chance of meeting and don't then blame your customers when it all comes crashing down.

(As a side note I worked for a startup once that operated in the UK only, so had a codebase focused on tax and VAT rules for UK), CEO felt it would be a good idea to break into the US market so asked the IT team to copy the codebase and change VAT and tax to US version, misunderstanding that each US state has its own tax, county and federal tax rates, led to two codebases needing to be maintained, both broken and unstable, all because he made an assumption that wasn't validated.

I'd recommend anyone read the Mom test book for validating whether your idea is actually worth pursuing with real customers (http://momtestbook.com/)

CR was a visionary back in his day, now he is a fantasist selling pictures of ships for a game ten years in development hell that has an architecture made of paper but with a marketing department i'd give my teeth to have in any company I worked for. He is Peter Molyneux in a spacesuit

 

[wolfie138]

i mean i do hope your joking.

Imagine if the likes of Rockstar etc etc read your statement and say to themselves, na its never been done before, lets not bother trying. Lets just do what others have done. Lets not innovate and try and push and shift the boundaries of gaming immersion and features..

Again, you are joking right?

no.
there's pushing envelopes then there's being unrealistic. you shouldn't need that explaining.

 

[jonneymendoza]

no.
there's pushing envelopes then there's being unrealistic. you shouldn't need that explaining.

They are not being unrealistic in creating a space game mmo.

I think you are over exaturating.

 

[MonkeyBasher]

I `backed` this game, in fact I have a golden ticket. I never expect to play it now.
I was promised a game combining the best bits of wing commander and elite, with squad based combat, different classes of ships, a player influenced economy and a campaign I could drop in and out of as a single player or in a group with my buddies, a mission system and voice comms.
There were many MMOs out there 10 years ago, many space games, many games with player economies. None of this is rocket science.

10 years on I don't have that game.
I'm not getting that game as some of those features have been removed.

I've not been asked once to vote on any `new extra` features.

They keep pumping out tech demos, new assets and new features that they have proven they can do repeatedly. yet the core features that haven't been delivered in 10 years.
Did I need an animated towel rack and a fish tank in my quarters? No.
What I wanted was the space combat game where CR said "space is mostly black pixels, this is easy to render, making the engine run really well on existing HW". Years ago.

 

[wolfie138]

They are not being unrealistic in creating a space game mmo.

I think you are over exaturating.

and you're fumbling for a reply. we're not remotely talking about "creating a space game" we were talking about the sizes that such a game could handle etc.

 

[jonneymendoza]

and you're fumbling for a reply. we're not remotely talking about "creating a space game" we were talking about the sizes that such a game could handle etc.

Its doable especially in today's tech

 

[wolfie138]

I `backed` this game, in fact I have a golden ticket. I never expect to play it now.
I was promised a game combining the best bits of wing commander and elite, with squad based combat, different classes of ships, a player influenced economy and a campaign I could drop in and out of as a single player or in a group with my buddies, a mission system and voice comms.
There were many MMOs out there 10 years ago, many space games, many games with player economies. None of this is rocket science.

10 years on I don't have that game.
I'm not getting that game as some of those features have been removed.

I've not been asked once to vote on any `new extra` features.

They keep pumping out tech demos, new assets and new features that they have proven they can do repeatedly. yet the core features that haven't been delivered in 10 years.
Did I need an animated towel rack and a fish tank in my quarters? No.
What I wanted was the space combat game where CR said "space is mostly black pixels, this is easy to render, making the engine run really well on existing HW". Years ago.

i could have written this post, virtually my exact scenario. still have my golden ticket too. looking at the sizes of other recent releases, i'm thinking that even if the game does appear i won't be able to install it until i get myself a new bigger hard drive. and possibly a better GPU too :-/

 

[Darujhistan]

Its doable especially in today's tech

Then why after 10 years can't they make servers than than can handle a persistent MMO style universe?

Why after 10 years is the game a buggy mess with people still falling through the floor?

 

[Darujhistan]

I `backed` this game, in fact I have a golden ticket. I never expect to play it now.
I was promised a game combining the best bits of wing commander and elite, with squad based combat, different classes of ships, a player influenced economy and a campaign I could drop in and out of as a single player or in a group with my buddies, a mission system and voice comms.
There were many MMOs out there 10 years ago, many space games, many games with player economies. None of this is rocket science.

10 years on I don't have that game.
I'm not getting that game as some of those features have been removed.

I've not been asked once to vote on any `new extra` features.

They keep pumping out tech demos, new assets and new features that they have proven they can do repeatedly. yet the core features that haven't been delivered in 10 years.
Did I need an animated towel rack and a fish tank in my quarters? No.
What I wanted was the space combat game where CR said "space is mostly black pixels, this is easy to render, making the engine run really well on existing HW". Years ago.

I think this a great summary of the experience of the non emotionally invested SC backer.

No server infrastruture or economy worth a crap, but animated towel racks and fish tanks? Yes!

I bet the cult members wet themsleves when garbage like that is added too.

 

[jsbombjack]

I am looking forward to my 10 year anniversary of backing this game (roughly November this year for me). I only ever backed it for SQ42, and have no interest in the persistent universe because I know I personally wouldn't ever invest the time to make it interesting to me. Looking at it as a relative outsider, I find it astonishing that it has taken this long to get this far. I accept there have been releases, but to say that it delivers on the promise seems like a lot of wishful thinking in my opinion. When I have logged in to the PU, and struggled to even get in to my one spaceship, that cannot be any form of game to me. Sure, it looks pretty, and the level of design is impressive. But a game... Come on...

Of course, lots of people get lots of enjoyment out of the "game" and good luck to them, but right now I view my investment as dead money and am frankly staggered when I look at the site and continue to see vast sums invested each day/week/month.

Surely this story, assuming it is true, points to a definite lack of focus on actually developing a game...

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2022-02-22-star-citizen-improving-character-eyeball-wetness

 

[VincentHanna]

As long as the eyeballs are wet, I don't care about the other features.

 

[wolfie138]

Its doable especially in today's tech

current progress would argue that point w/ you, lol.

 

[humbug]

I `backed` this game, in fact I have a golden ticket. I never expect to play it now.
I was promised a game combining the best bits of wing commander and elite, with squad based combat, different classes of ships, a player influenced economy and a campaign I could drop in and out of as a single player or in a group with my buddies, a mission system and voice comms.
There were many MMOs out there 10 years ago, many space games, many games with player economies. None of this is rocket science.

10 years on I don't have that game.
I'm not getting that game as some of those features have been removed.

I've not been asked once to vote on any `new extra` features.

They keep pumping out tech demos, new assets and new features that they have proven they can do repeatedly. yet the core features that haven't been delivered in 10 years.
Did I need an animated towel rack and a fish tank in my quarters? No.
What I wanted was the space combat game where CR said "space is mostly black pixels, this is easy to render, making the engine run really well on existing HW". Years ago.

CR said "space is mostly black pixels,

really???? That may be so Chris but....