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

I will agree the term alpha has been corrupted and doesn't necessarily mean the same thing today as it might have before, plenty of games are still in the "alpha" phase like Star Citizen, Ashes of Creation etc and in this case it means they aren't feature or content complete.

One could argue that Early Access now falls under the alpha phase also, as those games tend to be feature and content incomplete and often remain EA for years, most beta events in games are used a marketing tool primarily over a short period of time, long gone are the days of an alpha lasting months at a time before iteration is done and another beta phase is done.

On that I think the difference between software development (not games) and games are very different process. In the case of CiG where talking a colossal project with no time lines, so development can and has taken as long as they want.
 
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Noxia said:
If it's an agile project though with an as of yet undefined scope and requirements, how can you narrow it down to a set time? Especially considering one of the fundamental principles of it is change is inevitable. Granted activities are timeboxed but you seem to be talking about the whole package here and not iterative development/modules.
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To be fair, if you've been in the prototype stage for potentially years, (which would be normal) your scope and requirements should have been ironed out way before then, if they haven't - that's a failure at the planning and discovery stage, because you've not nailed down the requirements; in garbage in - garbage out.

In my case, we'd been in prototype for around 3 years (in secret) ahead of Alpha - we had strict objectives: what was in scope and what wasn't, or what was being left for beta or final release.

If we hadn't have had the strict objectives, the whole thing would have been 'open ended' and we'd have gotten stuck, and I can see how that would happen when you're too busy making promises and not focusing on the job at hand.

It's critical to get the scope and requirements nailed down, or it will result in lots of pain as scope creep sets in, things get decided on the fly and so on.
 
Screeeech said:
To be fair, if you've been in the prototype stage for potentially years, (which would be normal) your scope and requirements should have been ironed out way before then, if they haven't - that's a failure at the planning and discovery stage, because you've not nailed down the requirements; in garbage in - garbage out.

In my case, we'd been in prototype for around 3 years (in secret) ahead of Alpha - we had strict objectives: what was in scope and what wasn't, or what was being left for beta or final release.

If we hadn't have had the strict objectives, the whole thing would have been 'open ended' and we'd have gotten stuck, and I can see how that would happen when you're too busy making promises and not focusing on the job at hand.

It's critical to get the scope and requirements nailed down, or it will result in lots of pain as scope creep sets in, things get decided on the fly and so on.
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I find the whole project side of software really interesting, thanks for sharing. Obviously these things are always tailored but interesting to know :)
 
MadMossy said:
I will agree the term alpha has been corrupted and doesn't necessarily mean the same thing today as it might have before, plenty of games are still in the "alpha" phase like Star Citizen, Ashes of Creation etc and in this case it means they aren't feature or content complete.
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For me, the thing that upsets me is that the players are the ones who suffer - because they buy into the hype, because games like Star Citizen do look amazing - it looks mind blowing, if it was everything it claimed to be - I'd be playing the **** out of it every single night.

The problem is, they're paying full AAA prices to get a game which will be permanently messed up and will never be fixed, and they hide behind the guise that it's just a WIP or Alpha and it'll all be fixed at some point, when it can't - there's no way it can be fixed, ever - it's gone too far.

Maybe they'll get it right with SQ42 - I hope they do because I'd love to play it.
 
Raumarik said:
Ironically SC is now cheaper than most AAA games it's being compared with to buy, nobody is forcing anyone to pay more than the base game for SC or SQ42.
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Yeah I mean it's still expensive, but some AAA games are charging close to £100 these days,

For the record, I hate the new live-service thing that EA were pushing, it basically gives the company a license to be lazy by front-loading all of the bugs and problems into a full-priced alpha release riddled with bugs, dressed up as a 'live service'. The only reason they're doing it, is to get the money up front much faster than having to stick to the normal cycles.

The only difference (in theory) with companies like EA, is they generally have enough resources to get the basic problems fixed... (although as a Battlefield player, I can't look back at that sentence without crying)
 
Screeeech said:
To be fair, if you've been in the prototype stage for potentially years, (which would be normal) your scope and requirements should have been ironed out way before then, if they haven't - that's a failure at the planning and discovery stage, because you've not nailed down the requirements; in garbage in - garbage out.

In my case, we'd been in prototype for around 3 years (in secret) ahead of Alpha - we had strict objectives: what was in scope and what wasn't, or what was being left for beta or final release.

If we hadn't have had the strict objectives, the whole thing would have been 'open ended' and we'd have gotten stuck, and I can see how that would happen when you're too busy making promises and not focusing on the job at hand.

It's critical to get the scope and requirements nailed down, or it will result in lots of pain as scope creep sets in, things get decided on the fly and so on.
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That's waterfall method right there which not many follow nowadays.

Software of many kinds is a ever changing entities. Yesterday's requirements and specs could need tweaking, or when you alpha test it to a real user they come up with a killer idea and suggestion.

Its not really scope creep but more adapting and tailoring to a evolving change of requirements.
 
jonneymendoza said:
Software of many kinds is a ever changing entities. Yesterday's requirements and specs could need tweaking, or when you alpha test it to a real user they come up with a killer idea and suggestion.

Its not really scope creep but more adapting and tailoring to a evolving change of requirements.
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It doesn't matter what the methodology is, you still need to get the basics and fundamentals right from the beginning, otherwise you'll always be sullied with problems. Those problems will get carried through the entire life cycle of the product, when any team managed by a competent leadership team - would have fixed them long ago.

With SC - it's easy to see the root-cause because just playing the game for 30 minutes makes it stand out like a sore thumb. They've never really been interested in making a cohesive experience which works - it's always been about promising the next best thing, never about getting it into a usable state - just keep promising more and more things, on and on 11 years later here we are, still.

SC is a perfect example of a developer who puts the cart before the horse, and they're in a state where it's their only option - they need the revenue now to continue, but they're so full of bloat the problems can't be fixed.
 
MadMossy said:
Until SC is feature complete and SQ42 is out the door, SC is nothing more than a technical demo at this stage.

Let CIG cook it a little longer and come back in a few years time.
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Whenever i see people call it a tech demo i would like them to define that, because to me a tech demo is....... well its this for example.


And this....



Both of those you can download and PLAY? for free....

If Star Citizen in its current state is what defines a "Tech Demo" then i can think of quite a few fully released games that are also just "Tech Demoes"

I do wonder if they know what they are talking about.
 
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humbug said:
Whenever i see people call it a tech demo i would like them to define that, because to me a tech demo is....... well its this for example.


And this....



Both of those you can download and PLAY? for free....

If Star Citizen in its current state is what defines a "Tech Demo" then i can think of quite a few fully released games that are also just "Tech Demoes"

I do wonder if they know what they are talking about.
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When I say tech demo I mean, they don't really have a defined direction yet, they still lack many gameplay elements and many features seem experimental rather than intended.

Their design language had only recently really become the norm, specially with the ships with many requiring a rework because of new systems they are playing around with.

If feel that many aspects of SC have been a bit of playground for trying out things they intend to use for Sq42.

But I'm OK with that is still a fun game even if it's janky as hell.
 
Mr.Cookie said:
if you go to robertsspaceindustries.com and log in, under my hanger/my gear/game packages should show as S42 digital download
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Brilliant, thanks.
Found it :)

AURORA MR STAR CITIZEN + SQUADRON 42 COMBO​



Wow I had 2 pages of 'items' that I never knew about, all seem to be crap but still, nice to know
 
MadMossy said:
When I say tech demo I mean, they don't really have a defined direction yet, they still lack many gameplay elements and many features seem experimental rather than intended.

Their design language had only recently really become the norm, specially with the ships with many requiring a rework because of new systems they are playing around with.

If feel that many aspects of SC have been a bit of playground for trying out things they intend to use for Sq42.

But I'm OK with that is still a fun game even if it's janky as hell.
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Ok, take this, the RSI Constellation,

odI9Cwr.jpg


do you know how old that is? Its 11 years old, its aged very well. Its what used to be the distinctive RSI "design Language" but its changed to this....

X9nnfhv.jpg



Because its 11 years later, each ship manufacture has its own unique design language, unlike modern cars you can tell who made it just by glancing at it. quite a lot of the ship's are quite old, and they have all changed, some of them have been redone in a different stile, The Cutlas, The Vanguard.... Because its not 2012 and they can do it better now.
 
I'm not referring a specific thing when it comes to design language, the ships are an ever evolving design in the game, but the mechanics in each ship is changing, as we know there are only a handful of the 200+ vehicles currently that are "gold standard" as they put it, which means they have all the features and functionality that they intend for the game, including the engineering systems etc.

This has only been a recent thing, all the older ships will need updating, possibly even complete reworks in order to accommodate these changes. Graphically the game in general has changed significantly since the early days of the hanger module, even since 2018 their fidelity and design has changed as they implement new technology into the engine, and it'll change again before release as they improve it, and add more advanced features like global illumination and ray tracing.

I'm not dissing SC here, just saying its not finished, and a lot will change before it is, but to treat it as a finished "game" when it clearly isn't well, that's why as far as I'm concerned it's still a demonstration of what they want to do rather than a "here's the game systems they are done" now go play.
 
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