SidAlpha responds to Montoya

[Harkonan]

I'm going to be brutally honest from the perspective of someone who began backing around 2.0.

From a pure gameplay point of view ... I have seen little to no meaningful progress. Yes, I understand there are a lot of changes going on under the hood. And I know they've added content in-game such as shops and items. Yes, they've added more places to fly around.

But in general, what I could do in 2.X is exactly what I can do in the current 3.2 build. Fly around, perhaps pew pew someone, take a mission (if one is available), and attempt to make a few aUEC through trading.

For me ... the missions are boring and trading just for the sake of gaining a few aUEC that will be wiped in 2 months just seems empty. Mining is not my thing. So what ends up happening is I fly around the verse for a hour or two ... perhaps have some laughs in chat ... and log off. Basically, the SAME thing I did 2-3 years ago. To me, there are simply no new and meaningful game play elements that hold my attention. 3 years of progress and I'm essentially playing the same game that I was playing in 2015.

Now my hope, like all of yours I'm sure ... is that major progress will be happening much more rapidly between the rest of 2018 and into 2019. My hope is that we start seeing more game mechanics that allow us to be more creative during game sessions. Something to hold our attention for longer than a week or so after an update. 5 years is long enough for the PU to be nothing more than a glorified flight/combat simulator ... time to bring in some dynamic game play.

Having said this, I fully expect to be waiting awhile for a complete gaming experience. And that's ok ... just as long as it gets done.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

I'm going to be brutally honest from the perspective of someone who began backing around 2.0.

From a pure gameplay point of view ... I have seen little to no meaningful progress. Yes, I understand there are a lot of changes going on under the hood. And I know they've added content in-game such as shops and items. Yes, they've added more places to fly around.

But in general, what I could do in 2.X is exactly what I can do in the current 3.2 build. Fly around, perhaps pew pew someone, take a mission (if one is available), and attempt to make a few aUEC through trading.

For me ... the missions are boring and trading just for the sake of gaining a few aUEC that will be wiped in 2 months just seems empty. Mining is not my thing. So what ends up happening is I fly around the verse for a hour or two ... perhaps have some laughs in chat ... and log off. Basically, the SAME thing I did 2-3 years ago. To me, there are simply no new and meaningful game play elements that hold my attention. 3 years of progress and I'm essentially playing the same game that I was playing in 2015.

Now my hope, like all of yours I'm sure ... is that major progress will be happening much more rapidly between the rest of 2018 and into 2019. My hope is that we start seeing more game mechanics that allow us to be more creative during game sessions. Something to hold our attention for longer than a week or so after an update. 5 years is long enough for the PU to be nothing more than a glorified flight/combat simulator ... time to bring in some dynamic game play.

Having said this, I fully expect to be waiting awhile for a complete gaming experience. And that's ok ... just as long as it gets done.

Thanks for sharing your opinion :slight_smile:

I know what you mean, the missions are dull - I haven't done one since Tessa and the ICC probe vanished, it gave me investment to go get a mission from there and with just a job-board I have not had the investment to even click on the mobiglass section. I have only completed one trade run to see if it could be done, it can, and now I know that i'll do my trading when crashes don't risk wiping out whats in my cargo bay. Mining? Was never interested in it in the first place, whats come in looks cool so I may try it one day, but still not really fussed. Combat? Thats all we've had since the first working AC patch, but I'm a pacifist and don't care for it - so no Star Marine and although i do partake of Battle Royale every so often, the latest mouse and keyboard dead-zone issue means I can't use my fixed weapons to any good effect. I hear you, and if it was a finished game yeah, all of that would suck nuts. But it's all in just to get us by until the product is finished - the whole of AC and Star Marine is just there to let us experience it, I don't know if they'll be included as something in the final game. So basically, right here and right now, the game offers me, personally, nothing. Nothing at all.

So I'm just going to continue to wait and enjoy what I have here and now. May not be much at present but the above taken in to consideration over the patches I have had over $45 worth of play - I even flew to the far side of the Broken Moon in patch 2.5 (remember when the AC sessions used to glitch and you could fly out of the wall?) so I can't honestly say I've not got my monies worth already.

If you are asking, my opinion is I've never been a part of something like this before and don't know how it should "work" so have to accept that what happens, happens... As this is the first time something like this has been done before like this nobody knows how it should "work", it's breaking new ground and comparing its progress to anything else experienced before is setting oneself up for woe, if you consider the complications of Phenomenology and my pet subject of Aequiperantium.

Feedback is great and the devs do have half an eye on whats being put forward on Spectrum and the forums and as said constructive criticism with theorycraft solutions are appreciated by the team working on the project... But remember, the first video which sparked this whole chain of video responses was unsubstantiated opinion put forward as fact which has been the angle of all my responses. The points in that video were blown down quickly, Sidney Alpha has accepted that some of his verbiage may have been unwise and has been wonderfully mature and level-headed about it, but that was the root of the issue:

https://testsquadron.com/threads/video-montoya-rips-sid-alpha-a-new-one.13561/#post-256516

Yes, allowing people to have their opinion is very very important. But allowing them to broadcast it to 80,000 people as factual? Well I can't say he's wrong, because he might be right but I don't know and neither does he. So all I can ask is for them to do is substantiate their claims, over and over, because while they continue to spread these opinions as facts it just adds more complication to what is already a very complicated wait.

And I'll be honest, I find that frustrating.

 

[Bambooza]

Thanks for sharing your opinion :slight_smile:

I know what you mean, the missions are dull - I haven't done one since Tessa and the ICC probe vanished, it gave me investment to go get a mission from there and with just a job-board I have not had the investment to even click on the mobiglass section. I have only completed one trade run to see if it could be done, it can, and now I know that i'll do my trading when crashes don't risk wiping out whats in my cargo bay. Mining? Was never interested in it in the first place, whats come in looks cool so I may try it one day, but still not really fussed. Combat? Thats all we've had since the first working AC patch, but I'm a pacifist and don't care for it - so no Star Marine and although i do partake of Battle Royale every so often, the latest mouse and keyboard dead-zone issue means I can't use my fixed weapons to any good effect. I hear you, and if it was a finished game yeah, all of that would suck nuts. But it's all in just to get us by until the product is finished - the whole of AC and Star Marine is just there to let us experience it, I don't know if they'll be included as something in the final game. So basically, right here and right now, the game offers me, personally, nothing. Nothing at all.

So I'm just going to continue to wait and enjoy what I have here and now. May not be much at present but the above taken in to consideration over the patches I have had over $45 worth of play - I even flew to the far side of the Broken Moon in patch 2.5 (remember when the AC sessions used to glitch and you could fly out of the wall?) so I can't honestly say I've not got my monies worth already.

If you are asking, my opinion is I've never been a part of something like this before and don't know how it should "work" so have to accept that what happens, happens... As this is the first time something like this has been done before like this nobody knows how it should "work", it's breaking new ground and comparing its progress to anything else experienced before is setting oneself up for woe, if you consider the complications of Phenomenology and my pet subject of Aequiperantium.

Feedback is great and the devs do have half an eye on whats being put forward on Spectrum and the forums and as said constructive criticism with theorycraft solutions are appreciated by the team working on the project... But remember, the first video which sparked this whole chain of video responses was unsubstantiated opinion put forward as fact which has been the angle of all my responses. The points in that video were blown down quickly, Sidney Alpha has accepted that some of his verbiage may have been unwise and has been wonderfully mature and level-headed about it, but that was the root of the issue:

https://testsquadron.com/threads/video-montoya-rips-sid-alpha-a-new-one.13561/#post-256516

Yes, allowing people to have their opinion is very very important. But allowing them to broadcast it to 80,000 people as factual? Well I can't say he's wrong, because he might be right but I don't know and neither does he. So all I can ask is for them to do is substantiate their claims, over and over, because while they continue to spread these opinions as facts it just adds more complication to what is already a very complicated wait.

And I'll be honest, I find that frustrating.

Well said.

 

[Radegast74]

Thanks for sharing your opinion :slight_smile:

I know what you mean, the missions are dull - I haven't done one since Tessa and the ICC probe vanished, it gave me investment to go get a mission from there and with just a job-board I have not had the investment to even click on the mobiglass section. I have only completed one trade run to see if it could be done, it can, and now I know that i'll do my trading when crashes don't risk wiping out whats in my cargo bay. Mining? Was never interested in it in the first place, whats come in looks cool so I may try it one day, but still not really fussed. Combat? Thats all we've had since the first working AC patch, but I'm a pacifist and don't care for it - so no Star Marine and although i do partake of Battle Royale every so often, the latest mouse and keyboard dead-zone issue means I can't use my fixed weapons to any good effect. I hear you, and if it was a finished game yeah, all of that would suck nuts. But it's all in just to get us by until the product is finished - the whole of AC and Star Marine is just there to let us experience it, I don't know if they'll be included as something in the final game. So basically, right here and right now, the game offers me, personally, nothing. Nothing at all.

So I'm just going to continue to wait and enjoy what I have here and now. May not be much at present but the above taken in to consideration over the patches I have had over $45 worth of play - I even flew to the far side of the Broken Moon in patch 2.5 (remember when the AC sessions used to glitch and you could fly out of the wall?) so I can't honestly say I've not got my monies worth already.

If you are asking, my opinion is I've never been a part of something like this before and don't know how it should "work" so have to accept that what happens, happens... As this is the first time something like this has been done before like this nobody knows how it should "work", it's breaking new ground and comparing its progress to anything else experienced before is setting oneself up for woe, if you consider the complications of Phenomenology and my pet subject of Aequiperantium.

Feedback is great and the devs do have half an eye on whats being put forward on Spectrum and the forums and as said constructive criticism with theorycraft solutions are appreciated by the team working on the project... But remember, the first video which sparked this whole chain of video responses was unsubstantiated opinion put forward as fact which has been the angle of all my responses. The points in that video were blown down quickly, Sidney Alpha has accepted that some of his verbiage may have been unwise and has been wonderfully mature and level-headed about it, but that was the root of the issue:

https://testsquadron.com/threads/video-montoya-rips-sid-alpha-a-new-one.13561/#post-256516

Yes, allowing people to have their opinion is very very important. But allowing them to broadcast it to 80,000 people as factual? Well I can't say he's wrong, because he might be right but I don't know and neither does he. So all I can ask is for them to do is substantiate their claims, over and over, because while they continue to spread these opinions as facts it just adds more complication to what is already a very complicated wait.

And I'll be honest, I find that frustrating.

Well said.

Hear, hear!

I'll just repeat myself and add my usual: the scope of the game has increased exponentially since 2014, as CR has added planetary landings, full exploration of moons/planets, as well as procedural cities and ground vehicles and now ground combat vehicles, none of which was in the original scope and have been added incrementally since 2014/2015 as the funding kept increasing.

Also, this is a *pre-alpha* -- there really isn't any gameplay in an alpha, except that since this is an open development they have been sticking stuff in there for us to monkey around with. I was about to say "It's not much" but I'm just realizing that I've never unlocked the Ruto or Miles Eckhardt missions, so, there is definitely stuff I'm missing. But, it is also buggy...but, see my note about this being *pre-alpha* --> bugs are to be expected.

If you backed the game in 2012 because you wanted a limited scope game, in which you just flew around and never left your cockpit, or if you did, there was a loading screen and you magically went to an FPS area, then yeah, this game has been dragging on. But, we will all (eventually) wind up with even more of a game than we originally thought we were getting. Does waiting suck? Yeah...I took a 2.5 year breather from 2014 to late 2016, and I've been glad I've come back, but I'm also glad I spent time away.

 

[Tealwraith]

Well, sirs, if we are going to be throwing out our opinions will-nilly on each other, allow me to join in.

I see this thing of ours as The Star Citizen Project. This is the game I've been waiting for since Privateer in 1993. It is the game I've been waiting for, and will continue to wait for, until such a time as I see it is an abject failure and I start waiting for the next giant space sandbox MMO to be successful. I may be waiting for the rest of my life, who knows?

When people complain that they don't like X about SC, I understand that something is not to their tastes, but The Star Citizen Project is in alpha. We are here to see the fruition of pledges and participate in the creation of Star Citizen and Squadron 42. If you think we need fewer planetary systems in the game, please say so. If you are frustrated by the lack of content, you need to go play something else and come back when The Star Citizen Project is further along.

Star Citizen is not a game. SC is a kickstarter project in the alpha phase and we, as backers, are allowed in as alpha testers. If you can't back Chris Roberts' vision for SC anymore, follow Glorious Leader Montoya's advice and sell your account on the grey market or ebay or drop your investment level down to your comfort level. Don't burn out, go play a fun game and leave the frustrating alpha testing to other people.

That's my OPINION and I hope you all de-stress and relax and enjoy the time you have left in your life, especially with those closest to your heart.