Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games has said Squadron 42, the single-player portion of its controversial space sim, is finally “feature complete”, over a decade after it was announced.
Over 10 Years After It Was Announced, Star Citizen’s Single-Player Squadron 42 Is ‘Feature Complete’ - IGN::Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games has said Squadron 42, the single-player portion of its controversial space sim, is finally “feature complete”, over a decade after it was announced.
Once I can buy it, and download it, then install it, then open it, configure my settings, create my characters, and start the campaign, then, and ONLY THEN will I believe it.
This is the best take on here. There's no more "just trust me bro" tolerance anymore, too many things have just turned into vaporware over the years and now until I physically see it, it doesn't exist
Key part is that its not to start working on SC but the gate keeping of tech from sq42 to SC is open. What was showcased this weekend will start to be ported into SC.
This game has taken so long that it's either money laundering, the devs are just incompetent, or they suffer from the inability to edit themselves down
I'm sure there have been mistakes, but calling them incompetent is a bit of a stretch. Yes, it's an absolutely eye watering amount of time and money, but they are trying to make an online universe with a high level of detail in which you can move between planets and all kinds of environments completely seamlessly. If they weren't trying to make something with such a high level of difficulty, then I suspect they would have released a finished product by now, but they are making stuff nobody has made before, at least not at this scale.
Perhaps inability to scale things back is a bit of a problem, but I think Chris Roberts realises he's not likely to get a chance to get a basically unlimited amount of money (in game dev terms) to make the ultimate dream game he and many other people always wanted, so I'd imagine that's the reason they are just going all out.
How come other ambitious early access type projects don't have this problem.
Beam.ng comes to mind, it's not complete, but the pricing is reasonable, the progress is consistent and plentiful, and the product has been in a very fun engaging state for years and years.
And beam.ng is an incredibly ambitious project aiming for very high performing and accurate solid body physics simulation.
I don't think Star citizen would get nearly the level of hate if they had a more sensical pricing scheme. $45 +$15 for the base game, ok makes sense, but then there are multiple subscription tiers, additional 1 time lifetime versions of the subscription, different shops for different subscription levels, individual ships, insurance, a mobile game like freemium/premium model (earn credits to buy real money stuff), as well as branching the single player and multiplayer experience into standalone products.
A big ambitious game is great, but no amount of tech CEO promises will make the segmented and confusing monetization scheme seem legit. The game has raised half a billion dollars. It has already made more money than 99% of games will ever make.
That's enough money to pay 300 people 120k for the 13/14 years the game has been in development. They have the ability to have a large studio that rivals (or beats) large AAA studios in talent, and they have used more time than even the most notorious studios use to develop games.
It's not money laundering. It's crowdfunding as a primary business model. The point isn't to finish the game, but to keep baiting people with carrots-on-sticks until they get sick of the grift and the money dries up.
I can't imagine still thinking this after seeing that the game is actually releasing...
I was coming in here to see if the positivity actually carries over to various places as I was surprised to see all the positive YouTube comments on ign, but lemmy always seems to have a extra serving of negativity in all things... Oh well.
Don't deprive yourself of a good time, if you have the means to play it I would absolutely check out star citizen when they have their free to play events.
Cyberpunk had 11 years of development if we consider 2.0 to be the version that should have been what we got on release day.
S42 better be dam freaking legendary and rival Cyberpunk for story, gameplay, mechanics, graphics, etc. considering it's going to likely equal the development time.
I can tell you why I care. Maybe you don't care but I'll tell you anyway. Because this sort of bullshit people lap up blindly and let the industry set it as a new standard. Can we milk users for in-game ships for a game that doesn't exist for a decade? Do I want that for the future of gaming? Pay now for the upcoming necromancer in the upcoming Diablo 6 that's been in the making for 10 years! This funding model is predatory and the game is already primed to be soaked through with Eve-level of toxicity.
You should care. It's your gaming too.
Before reeeeeee, note that I don't attack anyone's enjoyment of the "game".
Only if they make a full release next year. Otherwise, they'll set a new record for slowest development cycle, assuming they finally release it. You can't forget that Duke Nukem only actually got the medal because they actually released it.
DNF had a 14 year dev cycle and this has already been exceeded by Beyond Good and Evil 2 at 22 years. So no, Star Citizen S42 isn't going to win that award.
it's such a wild example of feature creep, and yet it's not quite the wildest example of Star Citizen's feature creep. When Roberts' funding exceeded his wildest dreams, he should've changed nothing from his original pitch and simply delivered that. For reference:
Original funding goal: $2 million US
Funding by end of Kickstarter campaign: well over $6 million US
If they finished the project with a $4 million surplus, great! They'd have ample budget for post-launch support, and maybe even for some free post-launch content updates to improve goodwill. If that'd gone as planned, the dude'd be sitting on a whole new generation of goodwill.
Oh, and we'd have a game like this:
Pick up jobs as a smuggler, pirate, merchant, bounty hunter, or enlist as a pilot, protecting the borders from outside threats.
A huge universe to explore, trade and adventure in
Wing Commander style single player mode, playable OFFLINE if you want
Actions of the players impact the universe and become part of its history and lore
Fully dynamic economy driven by player actions
If caught alone in an online ambush, send a distress broadcast to your friends and if they’re nearby they can jump in-system to save your bacon.
You wanted proper Newtonian mechanics. You got it! Spaceships adjust their trajectory and orientation just like the real thing.
10X the detail of current AAA games (as measured in polygons)
Range of scale never seen before in a game - ships from 27m to 1km scale, all at same level of detail
Support for Joystick, Gamepad, Mouse, Keyboard, as well as HOTAS, flight chair, rudder petals, and VR
the cardinal rule regarding “in-game purchases” is: Players who spend money purchasing in-game credits will have no advantage over players who spend time!
Instead they immediately pivoted to a pay-for-ships funding model and let the scope grow to seemingly every one of Roberts' wildest whims
The tech demo is cool. Realization of no-loading-screen transitions from surface -> atmosphere -> orbit -> microgravity -> docking with another ship is wild. Being able to watch your pilot and gunner do a space battle from out the window, while you go walking about the ship is wild. But having it be only a tech demo for this long is so disappointing, and having the focus pivot from singleplayer-with-online to online-with-singleplayer are significant disappointments.
Ok lemmings, just saying, of all the places that had star citizen hate, they all calmed down and actually had positive things to say when this news came out.
Y'all are the only ones still being haters in such large numbers. It's releasing and it's looking to be quite amazing, don't deprive yourself of a good time when it comes out. :P
Laugh at Scam Citizen backers. Mock Scam Citizen backers. Make memes of Scam Citizen backers. Launch the hopes and dreams of Scam Citizen backers into the sun. Dunk the self esteem of Scam Citizen backers into a trash can. Funnel the dignity of Scam Citizen backers into a wood chipper.
Reminder that Starfield was in development for 8 years by an experienced gigantic team with a AAA budget and it still wasn't half as good as indie crowd founded Star Citizen alpha version.
Reminder that starfield is playable and enjoyable, with decent performance and a complete game with a shitload of missions. Can Starfield be better? Yeah, and I think it probably will be with a bit if time. Is the space combat a little bit dogshit with really nice audio design? Yeah, it sure is. Is it actually out, playable, with boarding and ship building? Yep, sure seems like it.
I don't even know why you threw this example out there for a single player game that's pretty much what everyone expected from a AAA studio in the current "optimize every dev hour per dollar" bottom line focused game dev style.
Played SC 2 years ago and it was extremely extremely buggy and a seriously hardware straining experience. I really wanted to enjoy it, because traversing the city by metro and seeing the ship's interior is pretty cool, but like on every 2-3rd mission, a bug killed my run.