Star Citizen 'Free Fly' event

[Raumarik]

All I know is I've got over 600 hours in on this "module - not a game" so far and put in over 20 this week alone. I feel so damn hard done by lol

1,000,000 customers - can you show me any company that has that many and makes even 99.9% happy? Of course not.

The game is delayed, big deal. They say single player this year, I doubt it and I'm not fussed. I've other things to do with my life than stress about when/if a game will come out and in the meantime I'll continue to enjoy playing it with friends.

This is crowd funding, you take the risk of throwing that money down the toilet when pledging, I'm seeing the game grow week on week, the mini-PU is great fun and has many elements no other game has ever managed to do in it. But you keep focusing on the negatives Cav, it's what you do best and keep digging up articles from last year and ignoring the insane amount of positive press since.

This game won't be out until 2018, single player MAYBE 2017 but they keep giving unrealistic timescales for what they and the community want them to achieve. Assuming funding doesn't run out obviously and if it does - I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

 

[Cavallino]

All I know is I've got over 600 hours in on this "module - not a game" so far and put in over 20 this week alone. I feel so damn hard done by lol

Its funny but you kind of proven my point here. You have played a "module" for 600 hours.
If a "module" has captivated your attention for that amount of time, surely that could be a testimony that the game is at a stage where its within the realms of becoming a released product? Bolt on the various modules, tidy the damned thing up, beta test and get it released?
(simplistic view but Im sure you get my meaning).

1,000,000 customers - can you show me any company that has that many and makes even 99.9% happy? Of course not.

Not arguing the number of customer neither their level of content.
But I question your source on "99.9%" happy. I certainly cant deny or verify this.

The game is delayed, big deal.

To some people, it is

They say single player this year, I doubt it and I'm not fussed. I've other things to do with my life than stress about when/if a game will come out and in the meantime I'll continue to enjoy playing it with friends.

Good for you.

This is crowd funding, you take the risk of throwing that money down the toilet when pledging, I'm seeing the game grow week on week, the mini-PU is great fun and has many elements no other game has ever managed to do in it.

Great to hear.

But you keep focusing on the negatives Cav, it's what you do best and keep digging up articles from last year and ignoring the insane amount of positive press since.

I saw this thread pertaining to a yet another module/part of the game released to public.

I made a comment about when is this game going to be released already, as Ive lost count on the number of such modules that have been released. This is the first time I have voiced my opinion on the matter quite vocally.

And for the first time by googling this (and yes posting some articles) its clear Im not the only one (when originally I thought perhaps I was being unfair).

So if that is being negative in your mind, then so be it.

I dont see it as negative but rather I see it as expressing an opinion (just as you are) on how much longer do we have to realistically have to expect to wait for a finished product and what is a reasonable amount of time to expect this game to be developed in.

Its evident that some people wanted the game 1-2 years ago.
People like me expect a game to be turned around in an average of 3 years or so.
Others longer.
And others like yourself and Paul - however long it takes to finish.

Plot that on a distribution graph and Ill bet that the majority of your average public will be somewhere around the 3 year mark.

This game won't be out until 2018, single player MAYBE 2017 but they keep giving unrealistic timescales for what they and the community want them to achieve.

Appreciate your estimation.
At this rate I would probably say late 2018 myself.

Assuming funding doesn't run out obviously and if it does - I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

Well with $100m or so, I sure as hell hope it doesn't run out of funding!

EDIT: You know what? Im going to make a point of loading all the modules today, setting up my TrackIR/X52 and giving this a good whirl. Maybe that will shut me up a little while longer

 

[Raumarik]

TrackIR support was removed months ago, I see your really keeping up to speed on what's happening in development.

I can't ready be bothered with the thread now tbh, I'll be in the other one..

 

[Cavallino]

TrackIR support was removed months ago, I see your really keeping up to speed on what's happening in development, makes me wonder if you have even the faintest idea what's going on with it. Do you know the issue council exists now? How about the reworking of the FPS system - announced last year? No? Yes? meh. Same old clueless arguments.

No I genuinely didnt know any of the above because I gave up years ago tracking every minute detail change in the game. the game seems to just keep evolving, introducing and changing aspects of the game and I got fed of up tracking it all, since what I read about the game yesterday, does not represent what the game is like tomorrow. So I took the viewpoint of "Ill read up about it all when its finally released".

But good for you for following every conceivable detail in the game!

Additionally CR/customer services have given refunds to those who wanted them, so if your "distribution chart" idea was even vaguely correct the project would have folded immediately.

The distribution chart comment was in reference to customers development time expectations, which may not necessarily mimic their thresholds for refund requests.

I'm absolutely no fan boy of this project,

If I had a penny...

I criticise CR/CIG on their own forum but at least I put the effort into trying things out, learning about the game and keeping up to date before spewing forth a mountain of ill-informed bile. The game will come out when it comes out, not happy? Get a refund or help them develop it.

Its a good thing you don't work for their PR department

 

[NZXT30]

I check out this game every few months and nothing ever changes, almost like the cries of fanboys are warping time.

 

[bimbleuk]

It is free after all to try this weekend. My only gripe at the mo is the P2P default download which I disabled after 3 hours waiting for it to update ~30%. HTTP = 50 mins.

 

[atpbx]

I see we are still having a problem with stupid people being stupid.

Its been in FULL development for a little over two years.

Chris hasnt just had to build a game, he has had to ramp up and staff an entire games development company of 300 staff and 4 studios.

When you understand there was no 300 strong development team sat around waiting for the staring pistol to sound in 2012 to crack on with making the game, you start to realise just how stupid some of the negative arguments about the time it is taking.... are.

The MASSIVE increase in progress in the past year since F42 ramped up is an example of what I mean.

The have produced things that certain developers did not even believe were possible, such as multiple fully functional physics grids, 64 bit precision positioning, procedural planet generation and seamless transition etc.


So please, stop being stupid.

 

[PaulC2K]

Yeah, i think in general people simply dont appreciate the amount of work thats involved because instead of producing something within the realms of what every other developer has been doing for years, they're going way beyond that, and doing so without workforce to dive straight into it, and its not like this is SC3 and they're building upon established mechanics and going 1-2 steps forward, there is nothing but ideas and the knowledge that what they want to create IS possible, but its incredibly new and they've mentioned theres a couple of developers who are either working on similar tech or have done similar, and they're actually talking to each other to understand how to get the best of it, because there isnt a decade of knowledge and optimisation gone into it, they're exploring, together.


I'd rather wait 5-6 years for an amazing game that'll last 10 years and be worth them supporting it beyond release, than say rehash what everyone else is doing in 3yrs and be bored of it within 18 months, then wait for CIG to make Star Citizen 2 the way it should have been done. That might not be the same view everyone else has, but what cannot be disputed is that the game CIG is making simply cannot be made in 3-4 years, let alone BOTH games, cos lets not completely ignore this isnt a tacked on story campaign and a 64 player MP element. Its a full blown single player campaign and a huge MMO.

 

[Raumarik]

It is free after all to try this weekend. My only gripe at the mo is the P2P default download which I disabled after 3 hours waiting for it to update ~30%. HTTP = 50 mins.

Probably getting hammered, I have pretty poor broadband though so I'm always capped at max download when patching

 

[bimbleuk]

Probably getting hammered, I have pretty poor broadband though so I'm always capped at max download when patching

I'm spoilt in that case and it's looking pretty good so far. I did pledge way back at the beginning so I'm happy to wait.

 

[Werewolf]

I see we are still having a problem with stupid people being stupid.

Its been in FULL development for a little over two years.

Chris hasnt just had to build a game, he has had to ramp up and staff an entire games development company of 300 staff and 4 studios.

When you understand there was no 300 strong development team sat around waiting for the staring pistol to sound in 2012 to crack on with making the game, you start to realise just how stupid some of the negative arguments about the time it is taking.... are.

The MASSIVE increase in progress in the past year since F42 ramped up is an example of what I mean.

The have produced things that certain developers did not even believe were possible, such as multiple fully functional physics grids, 64 bit precision positioning, procedural planet generation and seamless transition etc.


So please, stop being stupid.

Erm wasn't it promised to be released at the end of 2015 (or at least a proper beta)?

If so then someone didn't do any planning or make any allowances for getting a company up and running as well as the dev time to make the game.

Personally from what I've seen and read of the situation I wouldn't touch it with someone else's barge pole, as when I look at backing a project on something like Kickstarter some of the key things I look for are:
Do they actually have any experience in what they're looking at doing.
Do they have a track record of doing it successfully as part of another company.
Do they actually have the resources to start work on it in a reasonable time frame, f they're not a company that is already in existence with the staff ready, do they have the people ready to be hired and contracts waiting to be signed with companies that have the resources (or at least a core technical team ready to go).
Do they appear to have done their research properly about what the project will take - and is their plan realistic.

From what I can tell with this they've massively underestimated the time it would take to make the game (given they didn't have anything like a working company, let alone a dev house/team ready to go), and I wouldn't be at all happy with the progress so far given the timescales they originally stated.

I'd also be quite worried that when they had raised 50+ million they were still fundraising because they hadn't set a definite schedule for release, at hat point you should have your development road map fully planned out (with some allowance for slippage), and a rough budget. Star Citizen appears to have been losing focus on it's main aim (is it two or three side projects?), and doesn't appear to have anything like a realistic planned schedule for an eventual release at the moment. Two or three years into development you should have an idea of the release date (or at least year).

I remember another game where there was a huge amount of hype, and they kept pushing back the release date and throwing more money at it because they wanted to keep adding stuff.
I also remember the company going bust, and the game finally getting released something like 12 years after it was announced and being terrible (poor old Duke). And that was from a company that was already in existence and had staff working on it, not starting from scratch with no staff, or even core development team.

In short, I wouldn't put any money into this project unless there was a definite timetable for release.
It's already triggered a number of warning bells in my mind about how it appears to have been handled by a management team who are at best wildly over optimistic about what they're doing, even if they did not start the project knowing that their timetable was not realistic.

 

[B&W]

Do you have to purchase a ship with real money before you do any flying?

 

[B&W]

Hah, yeah I remember the DNF fiasco... George broussard what a clown.

 

[Vulcan]

Do you have to purchase a ship with real money before you do any flying?

You need to buy a ship to play the game, aside from free fly events. Once you've bought the ship though, it's yours, you don't have to keep re-buying it. When the game is complete, if your ship is destroyed in game, you will use insurance (in-game currency) to get it back.

Most of the ships can be bought in game as well, but you do need to buy one to start with.

 

[B&W]

ive downloaded the game, made a account. how do i participate in free flying to get a free ship for two weeks.

 

[Vulcan]

ive downloaded the game, made a account. how do i participate in free flying to get a free ship for two weeks.

The launcher should be on your desktop, login and start playing. I think there is only about 3 or so ships they are offering this time though, in previous ones they've offered more.

 

[Columbo]

Erm wasn't it promised to be released at the end of 2015 (or at least a proper beta)?

If so then someone didn't do any planning or make any allowances for getting a company up and running as well as the dev time to make the game.

Personally from what I've seen and read of the situation I wouldn't touch it with someone else's barge pole, as when I look at backing a project on something like Kickstarter some of the key things I look for are:
Do they actually have any experience in what they're looking at doing.
Do they have a track record of doing it successfully as part of another company.
Do they actually have the resources to start work on it in a reasonable time frame, f they're not a company that is already in existence with the staff ready, do they have the people ready to be hired and contracts waiting to be signed with companies that have the resources (or at least a core technical team ready to go).
Do they appear to have done their research properly about what the project will take - and is their plan realistic.

From what I can tell with this they've massively underestimated the time it would take to make the game (given they didn't have anything like a working company, let alone a dev house/team ready to go), and I wouldn't be at all happy with the progress so far given the timescales they originally stated.

I'd also be quite worried that when they had raised 50+ million they were still fundraising because they hadn't set a definite schedule for release, at hat point you should have your development road map fully planned out (with some allowance for slippage), and a rough budget. Star Citizen appears to have been losing focus on it's main aim (is it two or three side projects?), and doesn't appear to have anything like a realistic planned schedule for an eventual release at the moment. Two or three years into development you should have an idea of the release date (or at least year).

I remember another game where there was a huge amount of hype, and they kept pushing back the release date and throwing more money at it because they wanted to keep adding stuff.
I also remember the company going bust, and the game finally getting released something like 12 years after it was announced and being terrible (poor old Duke). And that was from a company that was already in existence and had staff working on it, not starting from scratch with no staff, or even core development team.

In short, I wouldn't put any money into this project unless there was a definite timetable for release.
It's already triggered a number of warning bells in my mind about how it appears to have been handled by a management team who are at best wildly over optimistic about what they're doing, even if they did not start the project knowing that their timetable was not realistic.

I'd pretty much agree with all of this having had a few hours over the last couple of days with the free fly event. I expected much more to do given how long its already been in dev and given its raised over $100m.
People keep saying treat it as a tech demo, but tech demo's don't give people an option to blow $300 on an in game ship and with no actual release date in sight or clear end game at this point I'd be worried about the outcome of any type of cash outlay.

It runs well and looks great but there is literally nothing to do, I've read some people have over 400 hours invested which blows my mind as I'm struggling to understand what the hell they've done for that length of time, I felt pretty bored after 4 hours.

 

[B&W]

The launcher should be on your desktop, login and start playing. I think there is only about 3 or so ships they are offering this time though, in previous ones they've offered more.

Yeah got into hangar but couldn't fly anything. Tried to go to launch bay and couldn't see ship either.

 

[Kelt]

Good to see prioritised investment in the game...

https://vine.co/v/itelIwgEP9z

http://i65.tinypic.com/35d4uf8.png

 

[Vulcan]

Yeah got into hangar but couldn't fly anything. Tried to go to launch bay and couldn't see ship either.

Forget the hanger, when you start the game up, click on Universe, from there you can select Area 18, which is a place to walk around, or Port Olisar where you can can fly around. In Port Olisar, go down the stairs and there will be several terminals, click F and you can order a ship.

I won't list all the controls, but the 2 that people miss are:

V - Changes your speed mode.
B - Allows you to use quantum travel, use the middle mouse button once you've hovered over a destination.
R Ctrl + Backspace - Respawn.