Star Citizen 'Free Fly' event

[PaulC2K]

With the regularity of these events happening up, I figured it might be a good idea to create a thread to highlight what they are, what it involves, and basically attempt to ease newcomers into what Star Citizen is all about, and then bump it with new info each time these events take place.

Latest Free Fly: Friday April 15th - Monday April 25th

What is a ‘Free Fly’ event?
Free-Fly events are promotional periods where anyone can play the game in its current state, a rarity in the early access. They start on a Friday and run for 11 days till the week Monday, usually late-evening because its initiated by the LA studio. Typically, these events allow everyone to try a small selection of ships, though the previous free-fly allowed every ship to be tried.

What state is the game in?
Its important to remember its not really ‘early access’, its closer to open development. The builds are released monthly, with the occasional patch if need be, but the state of the game differs wildly from month to month.
What you'd be playing is something that typically wouldnt be made available outside of a dev studio, but with the transparent development they're adding & adjusting things each month, running it through a small QA team, then putting it to public testing too a couple hundred/thousand testers as it gets closer to being considered suitable. Essentially its a build which isnt perfect, but its stable enough for people to play it, see/try whats new, and provide feedback. Its not really a 'game', in fact its comparable to a diverse tech demo in a way, with game elements.


What is playable?
Right now, we have 4 elements of the game:

• ‘Arena Commander’ - This is a small dogfighting arena, there are different modes such as free flight (practice flying), drones (wave based AI combat), racing (similar to WipeOut only very easy to get disorientated & lost!!) and multiplayer combat. This can be found under ‘Electronic Access’ in the menu, and the game lore cleverly explains this as an in-game simulator used for in-fiction E-Sports, as well as being training software. It lets you try things without any of the risks or costs associated with doing it in the game universe.
  
• `Hangar’ - This is essentially your home, your ship garage with additional room modules being added later on which will add weapon test ranges (handguns & ship weapons), social areas, cartography room (star map) etc.
  Being completely honest, its likely this area will be empty because if you don’t own a ship, you cant see it in your hangar. It’d also be the budget hangar, so intended to feel basic rather than grand and futuristic etc.
  
• ‘Planetside’ - Planetside is the first example of a landing zone in the game, this can be found under ‘Universe’ and then ‘Area 18, ArcCorp’.
  Theres not much to do in here currently except for explore and get an idea of the level of detail and purpose for landing zones. Here you’ll be able to shop for items like clothing, weapons, accessories, and ship components, as well as visit ship dealerships, visit jobwell for the latest mission offerings, get medical attention, socialise in the bar, or head to the less desirable areas and do some back-alley deals. The next 3-4 monthly patches are expected to bring elements of persistence into the game, starting with being able to purchase items in-game from these locations, rather than doing so on the website.
  
• ‘Mini Universe’ - This is a small slice of the Stanton system, its essentially what Star Citizen is building upon and it’ll eventually connect all the above components, and can also be found under ‘Universe’ and then ‘Port Olisar, Crusader’ in the menu.
  Here you’ll be able to connect to a 24-slot (at time of writing) server, and wake up in one of the many cramped habitation rooms on board Port Olisar, which acts as a spawning location. From here you’ll want to head to the main terminal area and request one of the ships available in free-fly and it’ll tell you which landing pad the ship is sat waiting for you at. Once you’ve found your way to the ship, and jumped in (usually access is from the left side of a single-seaters cockpit) you’ll be able to fly to some of the different early destinations in game. Port Olisar is a safe-zone, once you leave this area you’re weapons are enabled and you’re on your own!
  Of course, with multi-crew ships you don’t need to be on your own, theres no reason why you cant jump into one of the larger ships with others, and either fly, take a gunner seat, or simply sit back and watch them fly or have a nosey around their ship while they do all the work. The vast majority of players are only too happy to let people take a look around their ships, especially while there are no repercussions for bad decisions. As persistence comes in, that openness will likely change if crashing the ship costs money, or stealing it means having no ship (important note: we have insurance, if ships are stolen or destroyed, insurance replaces them, so theft is more an inconvenience, not a tragedy).

Theres also a training mission inside the ‘Electronic Access’ section, with various updates is now heavily bugged, and afaik not even possible to complete, and its not seen as a priority to keep fixing when so much is being changed and added, that time is better spent elsewhere.

My advice, jump into free-flight and practice in there for a moment, figure out some of the basics for ship movement, how to get out of the ship, how to land on the landing pads. Maybe try the drone sim, die a dozen times, and then jump in the universe.
I’ve added a section in the 2nd post about basic controls & keys worth knowing about before diving in, and if you cant figure something out while in the Universe/Port Olisar game mode, use in-game chat. Explain your new, and whats up, and im sure someone will help.

So, what do I need to do to try the Free Fly?
If you don’t already have an account, you’ll need to create one here: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/enlist
Part of the registration asks about a referral code, you can enter mine (STAR-G7WP-29QV) or use the generator.
As the registration page states – ‘If you have received a code from another player, enter it here and you will immediately receive 5,000 UEC’ (note: that’s applied upon buying a game package, whenever that may be).
Then you’ll want to download the game here: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/download
The download is usually around 30GB.

How much is it to buy Star Citizen?
You can purchase SC for £35.10 (incl 20% VAT), this gets you access to all elements of Star Citizen (alpha, beta, full game etc). There is a single-player game in development called Squadron 42 (Est. release late 2016), which is now sold independently.

You can buy either SC or SQ42 for $45USD (£35), and you can add-on the other part at any point for $15, making it $60 for both.
(listed USD prices exclude VAT)

- There are many much more expensive ships, think of them as collectors editions, or higher tier pledges with any other crowd-funded project.
- One great aspect is that if you buy one of the starter ship game packages, and decide you want to swap it to a better one, or one of the same price, upgrades & side-grades are possible, you just pay the difference (if there is one), so you’re never tied to that decision.
- You also don’t need to buy anything other than a basic ship, EVERY ship in the game can be obtained, by earning money in game, by discovering a partially wrecked ship and restoring it, or by less legitimate means if you wish.

Important: There are ‘single ships’ which are sold, these are selling standalone ships only, there is no game attached to them, and you will need a ‘Game Package’ to play the game outside of the Free Fly events.

 

[Raumarik]

Damn it I can't like this or upvote it!

*upvotes*

 

[Kosmiche]

bought this a while back wasn't much of a game then just some walking around a ship and a dogfight mode. Is it more of a game yet?

 

[PaulC2K]

Controls
Key map from 2.0 (Dec ’15) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20670693/StarCitizen/2.0 keys.png

For flight, its worth making sure you’re aware for a fews keys beforehand. The keymap is there above, its available in-game too, but it’s a real handful, because that’s everything, and when you just want to know how to take off… it’s a lot to process.

W/S controls the throttle percentage, if you put the throttle to 100% and let go, you’ve left it at 100%. Its important to remember this, its something that takes a fair bit of getting used to.
Using Ctrl + W/S acts as a strafe forward & backwards. Q/E is strafe left & right, while R/F is strafe up & down. You’ll want those last two for landing & taking off in particular.
A/D is roll, and then the mouse controls the direction the nose points basically.

When you’ve taken off, you can enable the ‘quantum travel system’ using ‘B’, which will bring up a handful of labels for available destinations. Get the ship pointing in the right direction, and then hit the middle-mouse button to initiate quantum travel, and you’ll travel 100,000’s of KM in a matter of seconds, arriving a few thousand KM outside the area, allowing you to approach at your own speed.

‘F’ is the standard cryengine interact button, you’ll use this to get into your ship, however to get out of a seat, you’ll need Ctrl+F (Ctrl modifier to make sure you don’t accidentally press F and eject yourself into space )

F9 enables your personal ‘mobiGlas’ a futuristic mobile device, eventually we’ll be able to do things like shopping, communications, look for jobs etc from here. For now, it gives you some basic missions. You can click on the diamond to track that mission.
F10 enables Augmented Reality, Google Glass in a way. Planetside this will tell you additional information about products you’re looking at, in the mini universe it’ll tell you peoples names, eventually it’ll be able to tell you notes about a person, whether you’ve dealt with them before etc.
F12 brings up the chat window, and pressing Enter switches focus to chat allowing you to type your message (I think enter brings you out – F12 probably would too).

Insert lets you switch between first person and third person, if you’re flying them it also shows different perspectives.

Its worth jumping into the free flight area and getting a feel for things. In Crusader, there are AI pirates and security, sometimes players will attack you, but its not the norm. If you want to attack people, I’d say feel free (im not a fan, but I certainly wouldn’t be annoyed – though shooting landed/landing ships is pretty lame!).

The future
In the not too distant future (as of April ‘16), we’ve got persistence being added, starting with the earn ‘alpha UEC’ (UEC is the in-game currency) by completing basic missions, buying & selling things in shops and you still ‘owning’ them next time your play the game, rather than game progress being reset each time your play. Then you’ve got things like logging out in the middle of space, and coming back the next day and still being in the same location, and even the ability to add elements of customisation inside our ships and hangars, like adding or moving decorations around. It’s the step-by-step to every action having a consequence, big or small.
We’ve got a 2nd planetside location which shouldn’t be far from being complete (suitable for access), this is an asteroid landing zone in the Nyx system, we’ve previously been shown live footage of flying from space directly to the surface and entering a hangar space, all done seamlessly, dynamically, and completely player controlled.

What this means is we’ll be able to wake up on a planet, pick up a job, buy some upgrades or cargo and have them delivered to your ship or sent to one of your hangars, and then walk back to your ship, and head on out into space, travel across multiple systems, protect yourself from opportunistic pirates, then decide to land on an unpopulated planet (a moon, or a green planet etc) and walk or even drive around it and explore the surface.
All of that will have happened without loading screens, without needing menus, taking place entirely in first person (or 3rd if you must), with complete freedom throughout, and you can share that experience with friends either within the same ship, or flying ships alongside you.

 

[PaulC2K]

[reserved for anything else worth adding]

Questions & Additional information

If you’d like to know more about the Star Citizen universe, a while back I created an area on our SC Organisations website which went into more detail. It started off as a few private forum posts with links to info, outlining some of the stuff we know about the game, and I figured as I added more to it, why not make an area for the info, and present it a little better than a forum otherwise would allow. I’ve never advertised it (ive mentioned it on OCUK twice, that’s the extent of it anywhere) and not really looking to make anything of it, its just something I did for myself, and in time I’d like to build something between an opus and a beginners guide for useful SC information, without it being too heavy going.
You can find it here: http://www.mercury-rising.org/star_citizen.php

If you’re looking to join an organisation, visit the main SC thread (here) as we’re not really recruiting as such and theres plenty of more active orgs who’d likely be better suited too.

If you have any questions, particularly if they’re more beginner orientated, then ask away. I’ll happily answer them in either location, if someone else doesn’t beat me to it, but it’d be better suited if this thread could be kept more themed towards explaining SC and enabling newcomers to understand the game, what to expect and how stuff works.

 

[PaulC2K]

Christ, i cant get 2 minutes to double check the text and make sure im out of the double-post block

Kosmiche - As explained, its not really something you'd load up each day and spend 2hrs playing. Its much closer to being a tech demo, proof of concept sort of state. I think the best attitude to have towards it, certainly if people are taking advantage of the Free Fly, is to simply try the game and experience what little snippet there is of the game currently, and then imagine that with multiple planets in around 80-100 systems, with tons of smaller objects like 6KM long mining platforms, space stations, most (if not all) which have interiors and a purpose, and are built to a level of detail to be scrutinised from 1 meter away as well as 10s of KM away.

If you want a game to dive into, SC is not that, not yet. If you've heard about SC and want to judge for yourself what its like, see whether or not its something worth being on your radar or not, give it a try. Also, give it another try in say 6 months, a year, they're not hiding the games development behind smoke & mirrors, try it and see for yourself.

- Thats a more general answer, rather than specific to you.

 

[Cavallino]

Seriously when are they going to release this properly instead of just releasing breadcrumbs.... release the whole damned game already.

 

[PaulC2K]

Seriously when are they going to release this properly instead of just releasing breadcrumbs.... release the whole damned game already.

You want the serious answer? When theres a whole damned game to release.

If you want a good meal, you dont go to McDonalds.
If you want fast food, you dont go to a restaurant, then moan that they've not brought you an uncooked steak 5min after you've walked through the door.

 

[Raumarik]

bought this a while back wasn't much of a game then just some walking around a ship and a dogfight mode. Is it more of a game yet?

There's a test mini-universe for larking about in (flying, ship combat, fps, missions) and they're looking at adding some persistence soon.

 

[ttaskmaster]

There's a test mini-universe for larking about in

And the vast majority of players are indeed larking about.

Last time I went on, it took forever to successfully connect to a server.
Then no ships were available because everyone was on a landing pad, perving over the graphics or failing to open their ship door... Eventually someone else comes along and steals their ship.

So eventually you get your ship allocated and dash madly off to get in, only to be pipped by loads of other players nicking your ship. If you get lucky, you can at least board the thing before it takes off... only to go exploring, clip through the hull and find yourself floating in the empty black... restart game, wait to get onto a server, rinse, repeat.

 

[PaulC2K]

And the vast majority of players are indeed larking about.

Last time I went on, it took forever to successfully connect to a server.
Then no ships were available because everyone was on a landing pad, perving over the graphics or failing to open their ship door... Eventually someone else comes along and steals their ship.

So eventually you get your ship allocated and dash madly off to get in, only to be pipped by loads of other players nicking your ship. If you get lucky, you can at least board the thing before it takes off... only to go exploring, clip through the hull and find yourself floating in the empty black... restart game, wait to get onto a server, rinse, repeat.

Interesting story. When did they add the ability to get into someone elses ship when its still on the landing pad, and the owner hasnt opened it?
The rest isnt exactly accurate either, not a blatant lie like the above, but it certainly hasnt been an issue since about January.

I started this thread to help explain the state of the game, and what people can do. People coming in with tales of pure fiction, and outdated horror stories of alpha issues (oh my!), aren't welcome here. Either be constructive and accurate, or grow up and take it elsewhere.

 

[Cavallino]

You want the serious answer? When theres a whole damned game to release.

"Whole damned games" (quality games I might add) have been released in a much shorter space of time. Don't like to use the cliché "This is reeking of Duke" but...

...this is reeking of Duke.

If you want a good meal, you dont go to McDonalds.
If you want fast food, you dont go to a restaurant, then moan that they've not brought you an uncooked steak 5min after you've walked through the door.

See above.

 

[Raumarik]

And the vast majority of players are indeed larking about.

Last time I went on, it took forever to successfully connect to a server.
Then no ships were available because everyone was on a landing pad, perving over the graphics or failing to open their ship door... Eventually someone else comes along and steals their ship.

So eventually you get your ship allocated and dash madly off to get in, only to be pipped by loads of other players nicking your ship. If you get lucky, you can at least board the thing before it takes off... only to go exploring, clip through the hull and find yourself floating in the empty black... restart game, wait to get onto a server, rinse, repeat.

The owner has to activate the ship in order for anyone else to then get in, it's locked until they do. There is no lock afterwards though.

When you were in space, you could have just used alt+backspace to kill yourself, spawn back in Olisar and spawn the same ship - that removes your ship that someones nicked so they end up floating as you did, alternatively go try to steal someone elses ship or stow away. The whole point of the game right now is testing stuff out, having fun, seeing what we can and can't do.

I've had some awesome fun in olisar with mates, if you aren't happy with it request a refund via support and come back if/when the game is released.

 

[Haggisman]

"Whole damned games" (quality games I might add) have been released in a much shorter space of time. Don't like to use the cliché "This is reeking of Duke" but...

...this is reeking of Duke.



See above.

Responses like this make me laugh, devs are damned if they do and damned if they don't. I'd rather wait for a fantastic game than end up with AC:Unity in space

That's ignoring the fact that SC is far more complex and ambitious than most games

 

[PaulC2K]

"Whole damned games" (quality games I might add) have been released in a much shorter space of time. Don't like to use the cliché "This is reeking of Duke" but...

...this is reeking of Duke.

See above.

Were you complaining 3 years into GTA5's progress that it should have been released by now? No, because you didnt know it existed then, because you didnt get it until it had gone through SIX years of development, 7yrs till it was on PC, and thats starting with an established studio with almost a dozen GTA titles to their name, a well established idea of how it all works, and a team of staff who'd been there years. Oh, and 3yrs of development behind closed doors.

CIG announced what it was doing, with 6 people hired (one being a lawyer, another being his wife!), and 1 year of 1 person and the help of Crytek support (and UE iirc, cos he was assessing both engines) to create a basic example of what the game was.

You're still expecting perfect steaks in minutes, because McDonalds cooked your meal about 10min before you decided what you were going to order, and were able to hand it over to you shortly after.
If you dont understand cooking, dont criticise the chef.

Either way, this is not the place for discussing such matters, so please stick to the topic, not other agendas and false assumptions. Take them to the other SC thread, and we can put you straight in there instead.

 

[Cavallino]

Responses like this make me laugh, devs are damned if they do and damned if they don't. I'd rather wait for a fantastic game than end up with AC:Unity in space

That's ignoring the fact that SC is far more complex and ambitious than most games

Why is it unreasonable to expect a game that has been paid for upfront to be released in a couple of years (perhaps even a max of 3 years?)
I cant comment about the "complexity of the game" as I haven't played it yet, but wonder how much more complex could it be to say the likes of Elite? (genuine question)
Not questioning the ambitiousness, this is obvious from the amount of money and time its taken. But there has to be reasonable balance between all the elements.

Were you complaining 3 years into GTA5's progress that it should have been released by now? No, because you didnt know it existed then, because you didnt get it until it had gone through SIX years of development, 7yrs till it was on PC, and thats starting with an established studio with almost a dozen GTA titles to their name, a well established idea of how it all works, and a team of staff who'd been there years. Oh, and 3yrs of development behind closed doors.

Difference being GTA didn't depend on crowdfunding to get the game developed, so knowledge of its existence kind of comes with this territory. Without the public, SC would not exist (at least certainly not in its planned form today). Not the case with GTA which was bankrolled by a big development firm which doesn't need to make details of its game public only until the last few years.

You're still expecting perfect steaks in minutes, because McDonalds cooked your meal about 10min before you decided what you were going to order, and were able to hand it over to you shortly after.
If you dont understand cooking, dont criticise the chef.

Cooking? Chef?
Im sorry but this analogy is completely flawed and non applicable. There are some quality titles and games that have been created and released in a fraction of the time.
Length of development time does not equate to or guarantee how great a game will be.

Either way, this is not the place for discussing such matters, so please stick to the topic,

Then don't post a long response and then end it by saying "this is not the place to discuss this". Start your response with "this is not the place and lets take it to the relevant thread".

...not other agendas and false assumptions.

Agendas? False assumptions? Wut?

 

[Haggisman]

Why is it unreasonable to expect a game that has been paid for upfront to be released in a couple of years (perhaps even a max of 3 years?)

It's pretty obvious that a project of this scale isn't going to be done in a couple of years, do you actually have any experience of software development?

I cant comment about the "complexity of the game" as I haven't played it yet,

Well, without taking into account the complexity, any argument about "why is it taking so long" is pretty irrelevant, since the complexity is a key factor.

If it was 3D noughts and crosses then I could understand the frustration, but seriously, go have a play, realise the scale of the game they are aiming for, and then you might get why it's taking so long.

As I said before, I'd rather it was released when it was ready than rushed to some arbitrary timescale and come out as a buggy unfinished mess like so many games these days!

 

[Cavallino]

It's pretty obvious that a project of this scale isn't going to be done in a couple of years, do you actually have any experience of software development?

None at all. But then my comment is made from the perspective of your joe average consumer, not a software developer.

Well, without taking into account the complexity, any argument about "why is it taking so long" is pretty irrelevant, since the complexity is a key factor.

And therein is the risk, by making it overly complex they risk alienating the target audience which they originally pitched to.
These guys have our money already so theoretically, they could just release a half assed version of whatever theyre aiming for today and be done with it, so I do admire the team for taking these steps to ensure perfection. The problem is where do you draw the line? Your line could be many years away. Mine could was last year.

You can always continue to improve and add features to the game, but therein is the potential pitfall.

If it was 3D noughts and crosses then I could understand the frustration, but seriously, go have a play, realise the scale of the game they are aiming for, and then you might get why it's taking so long.

As I said before, I'd rather it was released when it was ready than rushed to some arbitrary timescale and come out as a buggy unfinished mess like so many games these days!

Hold on a sec. There are two arguments here. One is related to scale of game and hence the reason its taking so long and secondly is bug finding etc.
From what I'm seeing the former is true today, as they seem to be continue adding content and features (e.g. first person shooting etc?)

As to playing the game, I honestly do not want to spoil my experience of the game by playing what effectively is at the moment a half finished game (as much as I am tempted to do so).

I just want to play the damned thing proper. Ive ploughed about $100 into this and yes I don't want a half assed product but sue me for wanting to have my cake and eat it

 

[PaulC2K]

I guess we're just continuing this regardless of how inappropriate it is, then.

"Length of development time does not equate to or guarantee how great a game will be"
Step 1 - Name me a AAA game that was great at release.
Step 2 - Take away the last 2 years of development.
Step 3 - Tell me thats still a great game.

Great games are great because they were finished, not because they came out when they werent finished. Those, by your definition, are half-arsed games.


Its not 'complex' as in pull out a 300 page manual and figure out how to start a ships engine. Its complexity as in doing things that A) the cryengine was never built to do (nor were others), and B) is taking multiple elements of bleeding edge game design, which at best have been done on their own by a few developers, and then attempting to combine all of them into 1 game. 2, technically.

You've got 64bit precision, seamless transitions from the surface of planets over 100,000KM in size and out into space and to other systems, local gravity and EVA capabilities, thousands of players and AI, and space ships kilometers in length, fully modelled inside and out.
That stuff doesnt happen overnight, and they're having to rewire a considerable amount of the CryEngine to make these things happen, using a fair number of ex-Crytek employees who built it in the first place.

But you cant simply dismiss the fact that a game which has had 7 years of development before you got to play it, which only spent 3 of those years in the public eye, and say thats reasonable and then lambaste another developer for having taken 3 years entirely in the public eye, and expect them to have the finished game available.
The fact that they asked for money doesnt change the development process or how long it takes to build a comparable product. You can have it done quick and half-arsed, or done properly. If it could be done quick and properly, then games would take half the time to make, cost half as much to make and buy, and none of them would be junk. However, where reality exists, things take however long they take.

The problem is, when you complain about something as Mr average Joe, it doesnt make your opinion valid or rational. You cant just ignore how things work because you dont understand the process and use that as justification for having unreasonable demands and expectations.

You want it now, you dont want it half-arsed, and you dont want to wait.

I'd love to know what you do for a living, and what your response would be to someone coming along when your half way through a job, and tells you it should be done already, no they've no idea what they're talking about, but so what, they want it now, not half-arsed, but both now and done. Make it happen.

 

[Cavallino]

I guess we're just continuing this regardless of how inappropriate it is, then.

Oh I don't think its inappropriate, I think its healthy.

"Length of development time does not equate to or guarantee how great a game will be"
Step 1 - Name me a AAA game that was great at release.
Step 2 - Take away the last 2 years of development.
Step 3 - Tell me thats still a great game.

Ill be honest Im not playing that many games these days but from what I can remember. Witcher 3? Took 3 years I believe.
Civ 5? (3 years also I think)

Great games are great because they were finished, not because they came out when they werent finished. Those, by your definition, are half-arsed games.

Half assed games can be games that are rushed (buggy) OR games which are complete (bug free) but are still lacking in content and have taken time to produce. What Im saying is that a game needs a strike a balance between all elements.
Definition of a great game on the other hand is a philosophical discussion.

Its not 'complex' as in pull out a 300 page manual and figure out how to start a ships engine. Its complexity as in doing things that A) the cryengine was never built to do (nor were others), and B) is taking multiple elements of bleeding edge game design, which at best have been done on their own by a few developers, and then attempting to combine all of them into 1 game. 2, technically.

Sorry but what you said above is nothing different to many other major titles that were released. Every developer faces such challenges and goes with the territory (not saying its not true - Im saying that with $100m is it now? and many heads, this should an achievable challenge for the team).

You've got 64bit precision, seamless transitions from the surface of planets over 100,000KM in size and out into space and to other systems, local gravity and EVA capabilities, thousands of players and AI, and space ships kilometers in length, fully modelled inside and out.

If Im honest, (on paper) sounds something similar to Elite Dangerous

That stuff doesnt happen overnight, and they're having to rewire a considerable amount of the CryEngine to make these things happen, using a fair number of ex-Crytek employees who built it in the first place.

Sure, but dates have been pushed back continuously, and the latest date is end of 2016. Initially the game was going to be a space fighting sim, if the game was that complex as you say, they should address the core mechanics and development rather than taking more on their plate (e.g. the FPS element?). I admire that they want to bring more value and content to the game, but if this is going to impact what the game initially was supposed to be, then this cant be a good thing.

But you cant simply dismiss the fact that a game which has had 7 years of development before you got to play it, which only spent 3 of those years in the public eye, and say thats reasonable and then lambaste another developer for having taken 3 years entirely in the public eye, and expect them to have the finished game available.

Again I revert to my argument that there are games out there which have been successful (great, if you will) and taken 3 years from start to finish, probably even less.

SC was supposed to be just a space sim from the get go, today the goal posts have moved significantly, even to the point now where there are two separate games which each have to be paid for I believe? (Sq42? please correct me if Im wrong on this one).

The fact that they asked for money doesnt change the development process or how long it takes to build a comparable product.

No it doesn't, but you raised the point that GTA 5 took 7 years but didn't complain because it was in the public limelight for only 3 years. SC is different because it will be in the public limelight from the get go due to being funded by crowd funding endeavours.

Also backers are expecting a return on their investment in the game, whereas games like GTA 5, nothing has been handed over by the public to develop the game.

You can have it done quick and half-arsed, or done properly. If it could be done quick and properly, then games would take half the time to make, cost half as much to make and buy, and none of them would be junk. However, where reality exists, things take however long they take.

Again, throwing money and time at a game development does not equate to a game being "great".
By the same token, games which are completed quickly can still be completed properly with smaller budget and still be great.

The problem is, when you complain about something as Mr average Joe, it doesnt make your opinion valid or rational.

I have an opinion, you have an opinion. You cant say mine isn't valid or rational because I could say the same thing about yours. But I know your opinion and argument is valid and fair and I can empathise with it.

But I can see Im not the only one with my opinion:
http://www.pcgamer.com/chris-roberts-speaks-out-on-star-citizen-complaints/
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/fans-dropped-77m-guys-buggy-half-built-game/

Interesting quote from the second link:

"Those who frequent the game's forums respond to such criticism by circling the fanwagons. But mostly they seem insulted that someone would accuse them of coming into this mad project without realistic expectations."

So to say my opinion is not valid or rational, is not fair.

You cant just ignore how things work because you dont understand the process and use that as justification for having unreasonable demands and expectations.

Im no game developer by any means, but I am a consumer and backer of this game and demanding the release of this game after 3 years is not unreasonable.

You want it now, you dont want it half-arsed, and you dont want to wait.

Im a reasonably patient (after 3 years) consumer. Sue me.

I'd love to know what you do for a living, and what your response would be to someone coming along when your half way through a job, and tells you it should be done already, no they've no idea what they're talking about, but so what, they want it now, not half-arsed, but both now and done. Make it happen.

Im glad you asked this Im a Global Account Sales Manager working for a leading electronic components manufacturer.
So trust me, I know all about:
'Get the job done, in half the time, from people who have no clue what they're talking about, both from my bosses and customers'

Edit: Just a further comment Paul, by no means am I 'poopoo'-ing the game. Im really looking forward to its release (YEARS AGO! ) I just wanted to make a comment in response to this latest announcement as everytime I see something relating to SC, its always another "module" or "part" of the game that is released, as opposed to the game itself.