So, in order to avoid things that I actually should be doing, I figured I'd take a look at what was Star Citizens original scope for that original 2014 delivery date.
(Yes, I may have ran into another person complaining about how "Star Citizen was supposed to come out in 2014 and it didn't".)
Things that weren't initially promised but we got anyhow
Player equipment
Player inventories
Hunger system
Suffocating due to lacking oxygen
Temperature system
Fully explorable planets (yes, we were promised exploration, but this would usually mean something like, you fly to a planet and then that's a location)
Mining
Atmospheric systems
Physicalized ship inventories (We weren't even promised access to every part of every ship, just that you could walk around some real huge ships and access the cockpit/bridge, flight deck and get to turrets)
Racing
Ground vehicles
Fashion (We got like a ton of clothes now)
Cities (Yes yes, exploration was a thing, and visiting places, but we were also told “Star Citizen will feature gameplay similar to the original Wing Commander and Privateer,” where locations were just static images that pop up with galgele style dialogue. Actual, detailed cities are much more than what I expected)
Harvesting entitites
Detailed ecosystems (Kerbal Spaceprogram also allows you to land on planets. SC takes it just WAY beyond that)
This whole lawsystem & prison gameplay
Visual damage and degregation
Oceans
Reputation system
Ship to ship docking (though we were promised you can land on ships, what with there being that whole carrier thing)
Ship to station docking
And then there are things that we weren't promised initially but are now in the works, a whole bunch of them too
EDIT: Whoops, I hit save. Anyhow, I was going to conclude that, yes, we didn't get everything we were supposed to get in original scope with the 2014 release of Arena Commander module. We got something, sure. Also some more detail than we initially bargained for. And no, not everything was there for the 2015 release of Persistent Universe either, though we again had some bonus stuff instead.
And sure, the game is still not released, but we have almost everything of the initial scope and then all this other stuff on top of that. Though a lot of things need way more work.
All in all, I know I'm biased, but still, I'm pretty happy where we are currently, I wasn't too disappointed about where we were a couple of years ago either. The game has been quite playable ever since 2014.
(Yes, I may have ran into another person complaining about how "Star Citizen was supposed to come out in 2014 and it didn't".)
What was promised | What we had in 2014 | What we had in 2015 | What we have now | |
(From main video) | | | | |
Fly off a carrier, fight heroic war | no | | Yes-ish | (Not the bengal, but some smaller ships) |
Huge Universe | no | port Olisar & surroundings | a system | |
PvPvE | no | yes | yes | |
Singleplayer campaign with co-op | no | no | no | |
Open world | no | Yes-ish | yes | |
Dynamic universe, player effect | no | no | Yes-ish | |
Jump points, discovering systems | no | no | no | |
Constant updates | Yes-ish | yes | yes | |
Graphical detail, very detailed | yes | better | even better | |
Everything in cockpit works | no | no | some ships | |
Character interacts with stuff in cockpit | no | some | some | |
detailed flight model | yes | yes | yes, several times | |
Level of scale from 2m tall character to kilometer long carriers | no | some variation in scale | we've seen that carrier | |
PC game | always | always | always | |
User designed ships | No-ish | No-ish | No-ish | (Redeemer?) |
| | | | |
(From description) | | | | |
Combat | yes | yes | yes | |
Exploration | no | very limited | some | |
Trade | no | no | some | |
Smuggler | no | no | some | |
Pirate | no | Yes-ish | Yes-ish | |
Merchant | no | no | No-ish | Well, you can give items and receive payment from other players, so sort of peddling |
Bounty Hunter | no | no | Yes-ish | |
(combat) pilot | no | no | Yes-ish | |
Scanning anomalities | no | no | No-ish | You can scan and find things, just not jump points |
Selling data (jump points) | no | no | no | |
Alien raiders | No-ish | No-ish | No-ish | (There is vanduul swarm playable but like... ) |
Ship upgrading / components | yes | yes | yes | |
Distress beacons | no | no | yes | |
Combat instances with slots reserved for friends | no | no | think we're planning for something better now | |
Friends can man turrets, repair systems, switch to pilot chair | no | Yes-ish | Yes-ish | (Apart from repairing) |
Like a whole lot of polygons | yes | yes, very much | like too much | |
Advanced peripheral support | yes | yes | yes | |
VR support (seated) | yes | yes | yes | |
Things that weren't initially promised but we got anyhow
Player equipment
Player inventories
Hunger system
Suffocating due to lacking oxygen
Temperature system
Fully explorable planets (yes, we were promised exploration, but this would usually mean something like, you fly to a planet and then that's a location)
Mining
Atmospheric systems
Physicalized ship inventories (We weren't even promised access to every part of every ship, just that you could walk around some real huge ships and access the cockpit/bridge, flight deck and get to turrets)
Racing
Ground vehicles
Fashion (We got like a ton of clothes now)
Cities (Yes yes, exploration was a thing, and visiting places, but we were also told “Star Citizen will feature gameplay similar to the original Wing Commander and Privateer,” where locations were just static images that pop up with galgele style dialogue. Actual, detailed cities are much more than what I expected)
Harvesting entitites
Detailed ecosystems (Kerbal Spaceprogram also allows you to land on planets. SC takes it just WAY beyond that)
This whole lawsystem & prison gameplay
Visual damage and degregation
Oceans
Reputation system
Ship to ship docking (though we were promised you can land on ships, what with there being that whole carrier thing)
Ship to station docking
And then there are things that we weren't promised initially but are now in the works, a whole bunch of them too
EDIT: Whoops, I hit save. Anyhow, I was going to conclude that, yes, we didn't get everything we were supposed to get in original scope with the 2014 release of Arena Commander module. We got something, sure. Also some more detail than we initially bargained for. And no, not everything was there for the 2015 release of Persistent Universe either, though we again had some bonus stuff instead.
And sure, the game is still not released, but we have almost everything of the initial scope and then all this other stuff on top of that. Though a lot of things need way more work.
All in all, I know I'm biased, but still, I'm pretty happy where we are currently, I wasn't too disappointed about where we were a couple of years ago either. The game has been quite playable ever since 2014.
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