Soldato
- Joined
- 30 Nov 2011
- Posts
- 11,381
Did you know it was an alpha for a game in development before you paid any money?
******Official Star Citizen / Squadron 42 Thread******
- Thread starter Raumarik
- Start date
Did you know it was an alpha for a game in development before you paid any money?
Soldato
Its a pre alpha.
Did you do some research before you jumped into the game?
I agree that the new player experience is bad but they cant work on that yet as the game is not feature complete
The last couple of patches have atcually been mostly QOL ones with lots of bugs fixed but you cant expect them to fix all bugs on a game that doesnt even have 50% of its intented gameplay features/content in game.....
Things are about to get a lot worse and i would not tell any of my real life mates to jump in the game wih pyro and serer meshing comes because that will contain a lot more issues that you see today.
You should have just waited until it hits beta at the bare minimum, ie when all the features are in the game.
Dont forget, CIG is also working on a triple A single player campaign story mode game as well.
Scream as a scam? It would be the most stupid abd dumbest scam ever known to man....
Watch this video
Associate
First time I saw the Mule at the expo and someone had put a load of whale plushies in the cargo sides. Kicking myself a little for not grabbing a screenshot. 
I didn't achieve that much during the Freefly, yet had a ton of fun. Even if some of that was just a new space game. I've grabbed the Titan starter package and feel I'll get my moneys worth out of it. The cockpit is almost WW2 levels though of interior.
Feel the game is close to a tipping point, where it'll go from being a tech demo to game. It'll be like Tarkov where it's always got issues and be buggy but will be at a point where you can get solid gameplay from it.
I didn't achieve that much during the Freefly, yet had a ton of fun. Even if some of that was just a new space game. I've grabbed the Titan starter package and feel I'll get my moneys worth out of it. The cockpit is almost WW2 levels though of interior.
Feel the game is close to a tipping point, where it'll go from being a tech demo to game. It'll be like Tarkov where it's always got issues and be buggy but will be at a point where you can get solid gameplay from it.
Associate
The Ugly White suit. 
No they are calling it that and it's been the perpetual excuse. Let's stop the pretense, it's not a defense against how poorly managed it's been and how the roadmap, targets, deadlines continually slip.
Mindlessly defending CIG is pointless, they deserve criticism for a lot of their poor choices and delays over the years. "but it's an alpha" doesn't cut it.
You can be a fan and still criticise.
Soldato
i wasnt implying that it being a pre alpha is an excuse.
its not and i have citisised the game too in this thread.
Infact, this freefly has been a complete farse and im glad its over and hope the servers are more stable now.
But there is a reason why loads more people are playing it regularly and everytime they add more things to the game and do more of these free fly event, even more people are coming to play it.
The main critic of CIG overall is there priorities and there communication to the community.
Either they keep there mouths shut and get on with and focus on finishing all the core tech first and foremost(which they have been for the past couple of years) or they tell us everything on why things get pushed back/delayed.
That letter from Chris Roberts recently where he admited one of the core techs they done was a dud is what many backers want to hear.
We dont wanna just one day see some core tech visible to the progress tracker and then one day its gone? we want explenations.
They would get a lot of respcect if they just said "sorry guys and girls, this piece of feature has been taken out of the next patch because what we done wont work as we would like and we need to start again"
The issue with miss-management is that because it was a kickstarter, a few of the backers wanted to see progress ie be able to experience and play whatever task/feature they done and in order to do that, you got to work on gamepla loops that are some how playable to the user base.
Most other companies work on core tech first and if CIG worked on stuff like server meshing, entity graph, gen12 etc etc, there will not have been any sort of PU for us to play with until maybe 2019-2020.
But we had the PU launched in 2014/2015?
Its not an excuse, but i am just pointing out that if they managed this properly, we would not have had a PU until 2019 ish and i doubt many would have continued to buy concept ships waiting until the pu drops with say stanton almost complete with all the core tech in place.
But the main issue is communication and miss-management
Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Aug 2009
- Posts
- 3,179
Probably some of the issues are down to servers and would not be a problem in SP.
I think during a recent talk of theirs (the ones that are about 1hr long), about AI, said something like things working fine in offline, while being bugged online due to too much load on the server.
I didn't pay anything. I played during the free period to get a feel for the game and I really was interested in it, that's what its for right?
If they allow free time to play the game needs to be in a condition for new players where they get a reasonable experience, and I tell you now that it is not in any fit shape for new players on free play times. This has completely put me off the game and now I won't be spending any money to buy it. I love sci-fi and space sims its my main go to game genre but this experience was one of the worst I have had for a long time.
The game has been in development for a huge amount of time and millions of pounds pumped in and its quite frankly an embarrassment right now.
If they allow free time to play the game needs to be in a condition for new players where they get a reasonable experience, and I tell you now that it is not in any fit shape for new players on free play times. This has completely put me off the game and now I won't be spending any money to buy it. I love sci-fi and space sims its my main go to game genre but this experience was one of the worst I have had for a long time.
The game has been in development for a huge amount of time and millions of pounds pumped in and its quite frankly an embarrassment right now.
Soldato
As mentioned earlier in the thread, free fly tends to be the worse time to play as the servers get completely rammed. A lot of the game is reliant on the server such as the AI etc.
Even accessing your inventory system is run by the server. I had lots of trouble accessing my inventory...
It was not working great for me during free fly. L
Soldato
Sorry but I don’t think it’s your place to say that when CIG are actively holding free fly events to attracted new customers. These events are not to stress test their inadequate servers (when servers are capped at 50 people, I have no idea why they fail to adequately scale server demands for these events) or bug test; CIG are using them to attract new players and this new revenue.
When the developer is doing this, you really can’t use “you shouldn’t play the free fly event, just wait until the game launches beta”.
FWIW, I found the free fly even incredibly meh. Some truly astonishing features shoehorned in to an experience that just falls short of expectations. It’s great having a world so expansive that you have to follow sign posts to find the hangers. But this experience falls flat on its face when you then randomly respawn at Grim Hex and have to spend upwards of 15 minutes trying to find the exit to a place with no signs. Why on Earth are you not able to ask an NPC for directions, feels like it’s catering to the social awkwardness of the player base
Soldato
They don't need to redo a startup guide every 6 months. They need a starter guide to cover the basic aspects of the game that aren't changing constantly. How to spawn a ship, how to fit armour, how to accept missions, how to navigate around, how to power on and fly your ship. These aren't things that need an entirely new process every time they're made. Not to mention, the sort of person who might be doing a NPE piece is unlikely to be one of the core engine developers that is key to progressing with the big features like Server Meshing.
CIG are not a little Indy dev any more, they've got 400+ employees, a complete lack of any ingame guidance for new players when they are doing free flies a few times a year to get new players to spend money is not something that should be considered acceptable.
Soldato
- Joined
- 30 Nov 2011
- Posts
- 11,381
They have done starter guides in the past, they are now out of date and there are several things coming online in the next 6-12 months that would again make a starter guide done now redundant... Again, it's an alpha, not a released game, people spending money do realise that as it's plastered all over every page as you go through the checkout process. The free flies are... Free, so clearly the people spending money off the back of a free fly don't seem to care too much.
Soldato
- Joined
- 28 Oct 2011
- Posts
- 8,571
11 year old half a billion pre-alpha.
LMAO
LMAO
Caporegime
I'll agree with that its really not.
Having said that 118,000 new accounts during this last week.
Blows my mind that some OCUKers have accounts in the first few thousand because someone alerted us to the fact Chris Roberts was up to something right at the start.
I'm citizen #9229 but I'm sure someone on here is in the first 2K.
I'm citizen #9229 but I'm sure someone on here is in the first 2K.
Raumarik | Raumarik - Pagan - Zealots of technology | PAGAN (Emmisary) - Roberts Space Industries | Follow the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42
Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and merch, as well as all the community tools used by our fans.
robertsspaceindustries.com
Caporegime
Blows my mind that some OCUKers have accounts in the first few thousand because someone alerted us to the fact Chris Roberts was up to something right at the start.
I'm citizen #9229 but I'm sure someone on here is in the first 2K.
Raumarik | Raumarik - Pagan - Zealots of technology | PAGAN (Emmisary) - Roberts Space Industries | Follow the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42
Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and merch, as well as all the community tools used by our fans.robertsspaceindustries.com
First 10,000, that is early, i came in a little later, Feb 15, 2013, about 6 months after it all started, i'm Citizen #116641, first 200,000.
Humbug | Humbug1 - Pagan - Zealots of technology | PAGAN (Emmisary) - Roberts Space Industries | Follow the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42
Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and merch, as well as all the community tools used by our fans.
robertsspaceindustries.com
Soldato
some of those are already in the game.
There is hints to come out of your bed and opening the door to get out of your hab as well. There are some misisng stuff but i want to highlight some of teh ones you mentioned were they will change the way it works and will need to redo the player experience for that again.
There is also hints on how to call ATC to request to take off or land and there is even a indicator on every ship in game on how to get inside it.
- changing armour( You do know that 3.15 recently completely changed the way they done this and thust if they had implemented a guide on on how to do it pre 3.15, they would have had to redo it again. The player inventory system is t0 and its going to change again as you will need to manually put your armour on from a locker location , not drag and drop so again this will change.
- How to spawn a ship( thats changing too. check the progress tracker and older monthly reports. Gone are the days of summinng your ship from the terminals in a spaceport, You will be able to do it all in your mobiglass.
- Accepting missions. The missions ae going to be redone completely with new ui and actual NPC mission givers. What we have now is a placeholder, not the final design .
- How to navigate around. lorville is having a rework and next will be area 18 so again its another feature that if you add a tutorial on how to find stuff in that location, it will change again.
This is why many veteran players keep telling newcomers that:
- its a very very buggy early alpha game
- jump on it if you want but jump on and play with a fello veteran to help show you the ropes
Associate
The new player experience is beyond awful. I agree it wouldn't take that long to build a basic tutorial, ingame, that explained some basics. That wouldn't change often. What do the symbols on screen mean, that you need to wear cloths in order etc.
I found a few of the popup (white lower centre screen) messages useful but a lot of them weren't on screen long enough to register and read them.
I had fun with it as a sandbox where I could explore a new world and do bits here and there. But I fully expect to uninstall and ignore it again in the near future. And then come back to it at a later date.
It does deserve a good portion of derision but it seems the perspective is being lost with what it's trying to do. The "It's still an alpha" is a rubbish phrase that should not be an excuse / justification, however, it should still be a factor considered.
I found a few of the popup (white lower centre screen) messages useful but a lot of them weren't on screen long enough to register and read them.
I had fun with it as a sandbox where I could explore a new world and do bits here and there. But I fully expect to uninstall and ignore it again in the near future. And then come back to it at a later date.
It does deserve a good portion of derision but it seems the perspective is being lost with what it's trying to do. The "It's still an alpha" is a rubbish phrase that should not be an excuse / justification, however, it should still be a factor considered.
Caporegime
To reiterate and reinforce what was said before it would be pointless to make a tutorial at this point.
There used to be a tutorial play-through, a tutorial mission where it would teach you everything you needed to know through literal voice-over hand holding.
Its was scrapped because the game quickly evolved and the whole thing became completely wrong, if they re-make a tutorial like that now at least parts of it will be wrong in 6 months, certainly a lot of it will be missing as there are new mission types and mechanics coming online this year.
This is the problem with having a game during its active development, that and bits of it are in various states of completion, polish and yet to be added.
The majority of its problems are due to over stressed servers, and in 6 to 9 months it might be an entirly different game as the whole server infastructure back end to fix all this and expand the game starts testing in a few weeks.
Star Citizen is in a critical phase of development.
3.17.X (Current live build) is the first patch with most of the Gen12 / Vulkan API in, its also the first patch with the Shard Manager up and running, this is critical for Server Meshing, its also the first patch with partial Persistent Entity Streaming, again this is needed for Server Meshing.
So there is a lot of very critical back end tech being stress tested in this build and its playing havoc on stability, Star Citizen is at an impasse, its on the brink of expanding into something closer to a true MMO and with multiple Star Systems, Full Persistent Entity Streaming testing starts in a few weeks and in Q3 this year full Server Meshing testing, there after we get the first of many more systems to come, Pyro, Nyx ecte....
There used to be a tutorial play-through, a tutorial mission where it would teach you everything you needed to know through literal voice-over hand holding.
Its was scrapped because the game quickly evolved and the whole thing became completely wrong, if they re-make a tutorial like that now at least parts of it will be wrong in 6 months, certainly a lot of it will be missing as there are new mission types and mechanics coming online this year.
This is the problem with having a game during its active development, that and bits of it are in various states of completion, polish and yet to be added.
The majority of its problems are due to over stressed servers, and in 6 to 9 months it might be an entirly different game as the whole server infastructure back end to fix all this and expand the game starts testing in a few weeks.
Star Citizen is in a critical phase of development.
3.17.X (Current live build) is the first patch with most of the Gen12 / Vulkan API in, its also the first patch with the Shard Manager up and running, this is critical for Server Meshing, its also the first patch with partial Persistent Entity Streaming, again this is needed for Server Meshing.
So there is a lot of very critical back end tech being stress tested in this build and its playing havoc on stability, Star Citizen is at an impasse, its on the brink of expanding into something closer to a true MMO and with multiple Star Systems, Full Persistent Entity Streaming testing starts in a few weeks and in Q3 this year full Server Meshing testing, there after we get the first of many more systems to come, Pyro, Nyx ecte....
Caporegime
The floor of my MSR at the moment, its because i have been taking on liquids there and dropping the bottle on the floor, this is about a week of accumulated rubbish, that's the partial Persistent Entity Streaming, right now its only active for ships, next patch that becomes global for everything in the game, its so that everything you have and do persists across server shards.
