Windows Star Citizen

True enough, but didn't SC promise over a hundred systems and have so far delivered less than half a dozen bodies within a single system?

 

Forgive my rant but I watched most of the reverse the verse in which Chris Roberts at one point apologised for his inaccurate deadlines and unrealistic schedule setting. Jared the CIG employee interviewing sat there being understanding and nodding his head so many times they may as well hire a nodding dog. I wish someone objective interviewed him now, asking questions like, "do you think you misled people?", "how are you accountable to those that pledged their cash based on what you promised and now want to leave but cant?".

Whether deliberate or from a genuine and profoundly unrealistic grasp of the realities of building games in the 21st century, this idiot needs to take more responsibility after getting his hands on $189m worth of pledges. Microsoft f****** him off freelancer were totally justified, and right now I would take a HD remaster of freelancer over this mess. Blocking refunds show his true character, while he speaks as if he is on the backers side (along the lines of): "I've told the teams now we have a live game environment we need to have better playability and less bugs" - said as if it was not his responsibility and decision to shove builds out the door hugely late and/or hugely broken. The guy knows how to manipulate his audience, and those former employees that got fired for talking about how much they are misleading the public were also bang on.

He conceded that SQ42 is not coming out this year. Anyone surprised?

 

What are you expecting him to say, "our estimates were off, I shall now fall upon my own sword live on stage and shutter the project, you all get nothing"? Kowtowing does not increase development speed.

Crowdfunding is not pre-ordering, the purpose is to fund things. You should no more expect to refund it than you would expect to un-pay a salary. If you're thinking of crowd-funding something, but would want your money back if it takes a long time, then do everyone a favour and just stay away to start with. That crowdfunded projects take time is not some new sudden revelation, after all.

 

To be fair, I think they have blurred the lines somewhat with these ship purchases and so forth: sure, technically it's all crowdfunding backing, but they are selling goods (albeit virtual ones). The entire ship sales operation is a slick, marketed exercise, and it's purpose may be to generate funds to allow the developer to deliver their dream project but it's not your standard Kickstarter-type crowdfunding any more.

 

That alone would be worth at least £75. As long as it's done and they take advantage of a bloody Z-axis.

I must have spent several thousand hours on modded versions (Asgard!) of Freelancer and had so much fun.

 

That's exactly the point whichever way you dress it up.

 

I would guess you are the ideal backer that CIG have fostered over the years - do not question anything and police the naysayers. This is a forum and I believe one of the few objective places we can actually critique the polit bureau of gaming. Posting on RSI forums or reddit is only useful if you like to measure how long it takes to have a post removed. So no, I will not be staying away and I believe everything is open to critique.

As others have highlighted, this has gone way beyond kickstarter. What was originally offered and collectively funded by hopeful end users has changed continuously. In the process Roberts and Co have become a corporate and cynical machine in terms of monetisation and marketing psychology. Quick question, have you bought your virtual plot of land on a virtual moon that does not exist yet?

I do not think for a second it was their (CIG) estimates but his, Chris Robert's guesswork and blind hope at the timescale and feasibility that were given out while simultaneously asking/promising for pledges. Watching that RTV was a lot of backtracking yet still with this mentality of "if this were a mainstream developer it would have got shoved out by now and we are not going to do that, this cash cow needs milking". However, to me that is exactly what they have to do now. No more new features, no more pushing the envelope, no more ******* concept art for a new location in SQ42.

Everything in the pipeline is executed with a firm deadline and the rest gets left on the drawing board. If one of the big orgs started a petition to see EA or a big developer take this over to finish it, I would have signed about 3 years ago.

 

I for one still believe in our great overlord Chris Roberts and believe Star Citizen will be one of the greatest Space Sims EVER.

Thank you
Evolutionsic

 

I meant stay away from crodfunding, i.e. don't give away your money in the first place.
Because whatever you might want to think, Kickstarting is giving away your money with no strings attached. If your response to that is "but I want a guarantee of X" then don't give away your money. Simple as.

No? I backed the game, and now I wait for it to be developed. That's how this works. End result possibilities are "game is developed, play game, game is good", "game is developed, play game, game is bad", or "funds run out, game is not developed, don't play game". Any one of these could happen, as with any business venture. Of course I'd prefer the former.

::EDIT:: To use an analogy: if you bet on $SportsTeam to win at Sportsball, and they lose at Sportsball, do you:
a) Accept the loss, you evaluated the risk before handing over your money
b) Demand the store refund your losing bet, because you only wanted to place the bet if they won
c) Declare $SportsTeam are a bunch of scammers

 

Ok, so now you've just placed Roberts & Co in the same category as 888, Paddypower, Ladbrokes, Coral etc.

At least with the above, you know your taking a chance in the first instance and have a statistical chance of a return greater than your original stake - not quite the same really is it.

Betting after all is probably more rewarding

 

People are asking for a refund on the $000s of dollars they've spent on an incomplete computer game...

I have some magic beans I'm offloading if anyone has a cow to trade?

 

Kickstarting is much, much closer to a bet than it is to an investment, so yes, you should be thinking of it as placing a bet on a developer (or manufacturer or designer or whatever depending on the Kickstarter) being able to complete the project. Your money is at risk, there is risk that you are exposed to, and there are no take-backsies.

 

Well you don't bet on a three legged donkey in the Grand National and expect it to finish or expect to see a rocking horse sh*t.

I think that's a suitable analogy.

 

In fairness it does feel like placing a bet! Will I get a steaming pile of horse poo or will I get an awesome game!? So far I've been pretty happy with crowd funding:

• Planetary Annihilation - wasn't SupCom but I still had a lot of fun
• Elite - Worth it just for VR
• Wreckfest - looked like it was going to be a bit of a damp squib - but in the final 'release' patch they completely turned it around
  
• War for the Overworld - as close to Dungeon Keeper III as I'm ever likely to get
• Torment: Tides of Numera - Very good reviews (though I gave my copy away)
• Albino Lullaby - insane crazy VR game - not amazing but also only $10
• Grim Dawn - probably the best game I've kickstarted so far. Insane amounts of fun and I've poured hours into it.

Ones that didn't go so well

• Roam - Basically dead
• Darkfield VR - got delayed so much they gave me a full refund
  
• Maia - One man development team, the only game getting developed slower than Star Citizen (is still going though!)
• Sir, you are being hunted - I just didn't really enjoy this game, though they did deliver their vision
  
• Starlight Inception: was supposed to be a non star was Xwing vs Tie fighter. Felt more like a mobile game.

The only real mistakes for me were Roam and Starlight Inception - I don't really have any regrets in regards to the others.

Star Citizen is shaping up nicely, but my god its slow. I wish they had sacked off either the MP or the SP and just developed one, then the other.

 

It is not that black and white. The manipulative nature of their marketing practices parallel with misinformation subsequent to kickstarter (in which the majority of their funding has been accrued) are up for criticism. If you pledged $50 in 2012 and have been waiting 6 years patiently hoping you might win your "bet" one day - good for you, how very insightful that you saw it like that and how (un)gracious of you now to throw it in other peoples' faces if they feel suckered.

So much other crap has gone on which you are choosing to overlook. In 2014 announcing SQ42 is being released in 2016, a shiny trailer with Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson et al while at the same time promising the Polaris corvette class and the conniving "limited sale" for £8xx or whatever. Yet here we are, mid 2018 with SQ42 perpetually "next year" and the Polaris still "in concept".

This has been their MO. On the one hand offering a dream game which they make, look, feel and sound real and genuine with trailers and footage saying how "cool it is going to be" within a "not too distant future". Then ask for money for the offer of new features/ships/concepts, typically raking in several million dollars. Then, months or years pass and the broken patch is released or reported deadline is missed and we get the "not even alpha", "this is game development" and now as it starts to look increasingly untenable "I am sorry I got it wrong and I am too optimistic".

Those that believed Robert's 'optimism' should be able to try to get their money back if they want to, especially if he truly is sorry about the misinformation. They have not neutrally been offering people the chance to pledge with the understanding they are taking a punt like your suggesting, edzieba. If they had, I promise you, they would not have raked in $190,000,000.

 

I retain extremely little sympathy for anyone who hands over several hundred quid for a future yet-to-be-created virtual spaceship for a game in development, then demands it back when their imaginary spaceship takes too long. If you hand over several hundred quid purely on the basis of blind faith in marketing, then you need to seriously consider engaging brain before wallet. It is a similarly low level of sympathy to those who pre-order the latest EA franchise Shooter on the basis of a shiny trailer then complain about the inevitable EA-ness at release.

To paraphrase Shigeru Miyamoto "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad, except if it's crowdfunded then make sure you crap out whatever happens to compile and call it finished because some people are impatient".

I don't think it's an either/or conundrum for most aspects. Assets are shared (biggest driver for development time like any AAA title), baseline engine is shared (I suspect most of the non-asset delay was from when CryTek dropped into the dumpster and stopped paying their developers, who CIG then hired to insource engine development), S42 has all the extra mocap & VA work (little used for MP so would not delay it, we've already seen the procedural anim for MP models), MP has additional netcode and server development (may impact the engine depending on modularity, but the PU is already live in the test environment).

 

Based on your second paragraph I think it is you with blind faith about this project, especially considering everything that has gone on to still speak about CIG producing this game with such credulity is madness imo.

 

Yeah, I can't believe the sheer audacity of some people getting impatient with a game that's years overdue with no sign of it being finished this decade.

It's not that people want this game rushed to completion, it's that it's miles overdue and keeps failing to meet its creator's targets.

 

Kickstarting is a gamble, but you do it in support of an idea/and or company. Non-refundable is okay.

Selling in-game loot (ships) for a game that may never arrive? Totally refundable.

As far as I am concerned, this game is Vaporware.

An almost bottemless pit of cash does not equal a product. You guys buying extras are just funding R&D at this point. Stop it. Seriously.

 

That's... the entire point?