@ Werewolf & Columbo
Hopefully you'll make the effort to read my response, i've responded to each of your points, rather than only answer what suits me (i think). Whether you want to believe it or not, is your call, but you've believed information i'd say almost certainly stems from click-bait articles (directly, or by other users), so i'd hope you'd take them from someone following the project who isnt selling advertising in making their comment.
Erm wasn't it promised to be released at the end of 2015 (or at least a proper beta)?
I cant remember the correct timeframe, but i believe Kickstarter states that (and this is where the misconception comes from), but only because once its posted and the fundraising is open, they cant change the details. They asked, and were told its not possible.
The community was given the option of whether to stick to the original plan or make a more ambitious title based on how much was raised. The decision to make a better game won by a landslide.
If they'd built the initial game (budgeted at $22m) then people would be complaining why its only a $22m budget game when they'd raised $50m etc.
Do they actually have any experience in what they're looking at doing.
The guy created the Wing Commander series, before he went and did films for about 10yrs, cos he wasnt impressed with the way the business was going.
Do they have a track record of doing it successfully as part of another company.
He's built 2 studios which were eventually bought out by EA & Microsoft.
Plus plenty of people who've worked on huge games and built assets for films like Star Wars & Guardians of the Galaxy.
CR's brother Erin lead the Lego games for the last decade, he left and half them followed and set up the UK studio.
So if 'they' is to mean the staff as a whole, then yes, absolutely. They just werent doing it as a company at the time of launch, but many of them were working under CR a decade ago, some of the Crytek guys giving CR help pre-KS are on the project. Theres 300+ people, maybe they're considered a start-up, but they're not just out of school and on their first project - no.
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).
They didnt have a company, but he had a handful of people who'd worked with him in his studio who were wanting to go back and make another big game with him.
They didnt have contracts with a ton of staff already signed, but they had plenty of people who'd said they'd come on board. So it depends on how strict you want to be on that. I'd say its the same thing, a commitment was there, if the project was to happen, yes.
As mentioned, Erin came on board later, but brought a dozen of the team with him in the first week, and plenty of others followed once the office space was set up
Do they appear to have done their research properly about what the project will take - and is their plan realistic.
Is multicrew realistic? done.
Is 64 bit precision realistic? done.
Procedurally generated content 100k KM in size - done.
Flying from space to ground - done.
local grids inside global grids, internal zoning & gravity, EVA'ing from your ship, ships kilometers in length detailed down to the millimeter and able to view its modelled interior and exterior at a whim, having landing zones where you've been in space seconds earlier and flown that ship down yourself and got out of it without seeing a cut scene or loading screen.... they're done too.
The only thing that hasnt happened is really a finished game. They've reached for the stars, and grabbed them, they've not got half way and realised its unobtainable and scrapped it as a waste of time.
If anything, the only thing thats been unrealistic has been our belief of how long it'd take. I feel like im at this constant 'its probably about 2yrs away' state, and thats not CIGs fault, they're not the ones saying its 2yrs away, its just peoples perception of what feels plausible, and then getting frustrated because THEY were wrong and putting that on CIG.
There have definitely elements where you could point at instances where CIG has essentially wasted time. The Constellation, their flagship multicrew ship, has been remodelled 3 times. They did the original, then 3 different configurations with slight differences, and then redesigned the original and will eventually bring the other 3 up to scratch too.
So are they free from mistakes or not recognising problems, absolutely not, but those events are few & far between. I'd say their eagerness to create assets to put them in the hands of backers, when they thought they had a solid idea of the games needs, and then realising it needs adjustments and rethinking, was the cause. However, its taken experience to know things, you learn from mistakes too, and they could have spent a year round a table and still had problems. So its hard to fault them for starting something for the backers to see something tangible, and they've had to go back and make internal spaces better, or simply use new tech like PBR to make it look even better.
Also, lets not forget the number of challenges they're overcoming in that list of stuff they've started and got functional (not implemented into live, but working non the less), and then question how many of those are in another game. Some might have 2 cases, maybe 3, but not all of them, and its not like those other titles also have some huge list of bleeding edge tech added or being added, and this is 2x AAA games being built as well.
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 wouldnt be either, but then they've never given a time and while they didnt have an established studio, they had things lined up just not signed because that'd be mismanagement in itself.
The only date they've given for the game so far has been 2016 for Squadron 42 (and i'd honestly still expect it closer to April 2017, too).
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).
CR probably does have an estimate, but then so did The Division and we saw that at E3 2013, it was delayed 18 months too, and came 2.5 years after we saw it being demonstrated at E3 (with an established studio and publisher). Theres no real benefit to giving an estimate, it sets them up for a potential failure, with the alternative being to release it before its really ready. Nobody wins, not when theres so many potential issues. If you could see everything was close, and could say its 6 months away, thats possible, but you've played it (i assume), so you must be able to see it'd be daft to estimate how long everything else will take to build and connect, get stable, optimised etc. Im amazed in October they said 2016 for Squadron 42, personally. When hitting the target isnt a reason to celebrate, and missing the deadline creates moaning and negativity, theres no win scenario, why make a bold prediction? Sadly 'when its ready' is right, as much as i'd love to count the days.
As for budgets and deadlines. The deadline will always be 'when its ready', and the budget will be flexible because A) more more isnt a bad thing, they want to provide free content (and paid SP campaigns) after release and keep the servers paid for and staff hired for multiple things (not just CS), but also because B) if they stop, its actually a significant red flag financially. Having a business that makes $30m 3yrs in a row, then makes nothing, its might seem fine but its viewed as a problem when financial matters are involved (leasing office space etc), but also C) the finances have no implications to the deadline. The scope of the game hasnt changed in 12-18 months, they might add new assets but right now the game isnt finished not because of a lack of ships, or because concept designers and modellers have been making new ships instead of coding, bug-fixing or rebuilding the engine. They have teams working on these areas, and if thats going to take another year then that cant be influenced by another team building a new ship etc.
More money simply means most stability, the safety net to hire more people if it makes sense (they are hiring) and ensure they have the funds to account for that, rather than living hand to mouth. Its not hurting the project.
[snip] more selective memories about Duke Nukem Forever
You know, i remember a search engine that had nothing, they didnt have an office, bla bla bla Google
If we were 2 years ago, and nothing really to show for it, then fine. However, yes, DNF was by an established studio, and they failed. Do we apply the same logic to every other game as a precautionary tale? No, because its really not relevant. Bad outcomes come from bad decisions, and so far, considering all the various aspects they said they were aiming for, they've created proof of concepts for most of them, demonstrated live, some already implemented, then they're not bad decisions, they're high expectations, an understanding of what technology is possible, and then deciding they want to be a pioneer and create that next leap forward, when the rest of the industry is quite happy to take baby steps.
The sad thing is (and equally, why its important it has success), if you look at where the big innovations and clever implementations are coming from, and its not EA, Ubisoft & co, its from independent studios.
The ones with the capability to do grand things arent interested, just change the era of another Assassins Creed or Call of Duty, and get it released. Its the smaller studios with complete freedom and control, making the games they want, and being bold.
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.
No, nor would i if the basis of my knowledge was almost entirely false
You've just given a list of things you'd check for on a kickstarter campaign, come to a conclusion its not a safe bet, and yet in reality you've not actually checked any of the things you have an issue with, i'd imagine you've picked up on certain things from the headlines of click-bait media with their latest scoop.
I dont know if you're aware (because the sensation is more interesting than the correction that follows), but last summer we had 1 insignificant game developers, whos been making space sims which nobody has played or really gives a damn about, since CR was making the Wing Commander game (His latest space game on steam EA looks like its from 2000 and has an avg peak connections at 2, its that good).
He was removed from the RSI forums, and his package refunded having spent months being unreasonably critical and making misleading claims and rallying people to demand a refund and claims he'd contacted the FTC (who were checked a few weeks later, and denied any such request had been made). One of his twitter buddies (dumb & dumber, i guess) happens to be a journo, and shortly after that dev was removed, they magically found a huge story with claims of racism and similar employment related claims (federal offences btw), being abusive to other staff, having spent all the raised money on CRs fancy house & car (he's made 4 hugely successful games, sold 2 companies to EA & MS, and directed/produced 3-4 reasonably well known films with decent budgets and actors), and having no money left, amongst other claims.
The journo asked for comment before posting, and then claimed the reply ended up in their spam folder (right!?) when they published it without response.
When threatened by legal action, they made a statement that the claims were made by disgruntled ex-employees who'd be kept anon, but who provided CIG branded photo ID to authentic them. The near word-for-word claims were also made on an Aussie employment site, which doesnt authenticate the legitimacy of the person making the statement about the company, just 24hrs before the post went up.
Whats important to note is that CIG have never had photo ID. They have unbranded security passes, no photo, no logo, no markings. So their claim which was supposed to prove the statements were authentic, were either providing false ID, or simply didnt exist and was created to add authenticity it lacked. The initial story of abuse, racist employment, fraud etc made headlines on plenty of gaming sites. The fact that their 'proof' was impossible, didnt.
To add flavour to the above, the same female journo and male developer, were at the center of the whole #Gamergate storm around the same time, turning the original story of inappropriate relations between developer & media creating stories, into the sexism in games story it ended up being. Whether the opposing sex of either party came into their opinion or not, the fact that they were pivotal in changing the #Gamergate subject/meaning from ethics in journalism, into sexism and misogynistic attitudes in characters & gaming, speaks to their character.
Thats where the vast majority of negative stories, if not ALL of them, have come from. Someone with an axe to grind, because they're nothing to the industry, and the only reason people know his name is because he's been doing this exact same thing for decades.
But if it'll bring 10,000 views to the site, plenty of sites will publish it. Theres no journalistic merit to any of it.
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.
We'll skip over your agreement, for obvious reasons
£35 would have been enough for both SC & SQ42, roughly £45 now.
$300 ships arent there for people who just want to buy the game, its for people who say they want to contribute more towards the project. If you want to buy the game, you dont need anything more than the basic package. If you want to give more, there are plenty of options. Look at other kickstarter campaigns, they have tiers, except they say $100 = this, $200 = that. At least CIG say whatever you contribute/pledge, you can use as credit to buy whatever floats your boat. If the $150 tier item was a hauler, and you want to be a pirate, you'd rather have the $100 pirate ship and a $50 starter ship, you can. Why people get hung up on it, i'll never know.
People play the Arena part for many hours a week, they like space games and thats a multiplayer combat arena mode. You probably didnt try that part, the 'universe' area, no theres not much to do. Its relatively new (Dec) and this is the part they're expanding upon too. The plan has been to build modules to give people something to play, give feedback on, look at optimisation etc, but as more becomes available it's then moved on to the 'Universe' part which is what the game is really about. Its purpose right now is just to let people try things as they are, find problems and fix them etc.
What you're also not seeing, is the fact that there is a 2nd game being developed with very little of it being shown because they dont want to spoil it. We've already accidentally seen (asset leak) theres about 15 alien ships we'd never seen or knew existed, there are huge ships which arent far from being built but are being held back for Squadron 42. I've also seen first hand a fair amount of content i cant disclose, levels, landing zones, props. Once that game is released, all of its content will be introduced into the 'universe', but until then the majority of it is being held back. Stuff like career related elements (mining, salvage, hauling for example) are whats being focused on for the 'universe'.
Just because you dont see it, doesnt mean it doesnt exist. Their accidental leak last summer, where around 1/4 of their assets were downloaded before being noticed, showed the community that there was a huge amount of content we never knew existed, and that came when the community was getting somewhat down on the pace of things, and made us realise theres so much more going on we're not seeing, because they want to keep it private till SQ42 is much closer.
What we can play, right now, is pretty limited. If you're disappointed theres not a huge game, thats because you ignore what you're being told, obviously. However once different elements are added (many of which we've seen working live) are linked in, wired up to the other stuff, then it all starts to unfold. But no, theres not much of a 'game' in the universe. Try 'Arena Commander' in 'Electronic Access', but then if you're not into dogfighting thats not going to be of interest either. I've not played the game very much at all, and i dont think my enthusiasm can be doubted. I'll try each update, have a look at whats new, and thats it. Thats why i say the attitude to take is to view it as a tech demo, take a look at it, but not expect to get hours of gameplay from it. Expecting a game, or complaining that there isnt hours of gameplay there, what a waste of time... theres a reason i wrote what ive wrote in the initial thread, to explain and manage expectations.
Im doing that so people can make a decision of whether to try or not. I list everything available, explain how to do stuff to make it a little easier, and let people make their own decision. If people want to skip that, and be disappointed... i tried.
You realise its just a painted panel door, instead of a regular glass door that are in many offices, and a sofa... right? Its not McDonalds, having a lounge area in a company like that isnt uncommon. As it is, the likes of EA pay their staff around 3x more, but the people there are more interesting on being able to make a game that challenges them, rather than holds them back.
Having the creature comforts they're used to having around them, and a nice working environment is hardly something to be critical about.
Also, the Foundry42 UK office has instructions on the exit doors to each floor in the building they're in, explaining the procedure for locking the office up and putting the alarm on after 2am. I asked about it, apparently most of them are there till 9-10pm, and it isnt uncommon for a bunch of them to be there beyond midnight if they're focusing on getting something done.
The sad thing is that we're reading stories, forming an opinion without knowing whether its true or not, and we're essentially polluting the real information to the point where its impossible to tell. I dont believe these comments are coming from people intentionally being misleading, but they arent factually accurate, they're not fair or reasonable claims. They're opinions from misinformation or misunderstandings. Unintentional, but still incorrect.
If you have a question, or want to bring up stuff you believe is negative, then i'll try and explain. You may be correct, and hopefully i can provide more of an explanation, maybe it isnt as bad as it seems. You may be wrong, and i'll explain why also.
All i ask is that if people want to state an opinion, at least be sure the basis of that opinion comes from fact & personal experience, not hearsay and assumptions of facts.
Thus endeth the longest post in OCUK history. 
