I give up.

[Thalstan]

That's the power of language.


Sure it can.

I stopped buying into into the "future" of this game and its "promise" a while ago.

The game is out NOW. Its a live service game with updates. Eventually, it may or may not have drones, and settlements, and ai blades, and hirable npcs, and a point to do things, and org tools, and modularity, etc etc etc. Right now it doesn't. I would be surprised if any of that stuff makes it in the next 5 years.

Its a game you can jump into, fly around, see pretty space things with a decent flight model. Its a weak game but a solid experience. I jump in every few months to experience it again and to see what new widgets they have added. This is how most live service games work.

Here's the news flash: once all those features are in, people still won't be satisfied because it won't match up to the fantasy they have built up in their brain. But don't worry, CIG will come up with new features to put on the roadmap, new stuff to pledge for, for who knows how long.

EDIT: I want to make it clear that I am not criticizing CIG or SC development. They are selling us on a fantasy - which is what ALL MMOs do. Honestly, the current SC experience is more fulfilling to me than many other MMOs out there (New World, etc). I just think that we as consumers shouldn't kid ourselves about what SC is or what our roles as consumers of SC content is. Its a game not a "project". We are consumers not "investors". Its current state is, IMO, released not "alpha." Just my two cents.

Released games don’t have inventory rep, and other character type wipes so they can redo a system. At least no persistent universe mmo can. That alone prevents it from being out of alpha.
Also if this were not alpha, we would not have aUEC (alpha UEC) cash ship sales would be almost non existent, no more CCUs, and lots of other things. We are still in an alpha testing zone and will remain here for at least 4 years

 

[Mentalic]

I think Tarkov has regular wipes.

 

[Sirus7264]

A bit deadlier, in fact it was the only RPG where you can die during character creation. :) It is a similar idea, and one version of the game is based on the D20 rules. But, yes, it can be pretty fun.

hahahahaha really?? die in character creation? sounds harsh!

There is a class of software, I'm currently looking for the better current examples, designed to allow that tabletop experience through the Internet.

Let me know what you find i might be interested it has been a long time since i played a game like D and D.

 

[Thalstan]

I think Tarkov has regular wipes.

If you can only point to one, or even a handful, while conveniently ignoring the other issues I raised, then it sort of proves my point more than it proves yours.

CR has said repeatedly that he is not rushing “release” and has pointed to many games that release prematurely and get negative reviews for small issues (for example, cyberpunk at release).

Indeed, if SC were to announced it was releasing to version 1.0 tomorrow and put out the current code, it would be laughed out of existence and would die a quick death for people trying it, getting some 30ks, and generally posting horrible reviews about how unstable and unfinished it is.

I suspect modern gaming mags would give it a sub 50 score out of 100, with some being in the 20, 10s, or even lower.

I know you are defending CIG, but Richard has some good points about CIG constantly reinventing things, redoing things, and in general, not having a good constant roadmap of where they want to get to, but instead have a general destination and instead of moving towards it, they keep adding in new points of interest they want to visit, or re-visit every few months, even if that point of interest is way back where you started from.

CR is also right in that this could not be done with a traditional publishers, because a traditional publisher would have gotten tired of this back in 2016, a publisher would have told CR no when it came to full worlds (at least not until after release as a future expansion, and would have pushed him to keep to his original schedule he published at CitizenCon 2016. If he didn’t, they would have forced him out or dropped him and either sell the game to another publisher to finish, or hire someone else to finish it under contract. While we typically deride publishers, they are very good about forcing the developer to be disciplined with what they do. It’s obvious that when it comes to self discipline and development of the game, CR has none. The lack of this discipline is one of the causes of frustration that people like Richard sometimes feel, and forces them to make the difficult decision to end support of the game.

 

[Mentalic]

Let me know what you find i might be interested it has been a long time since i played a game like D and D.

You might look to the LFG reddit (reddit.com/r/lfg) to find an online group if you wanna play an rpg online. Folks use Virtual Tabletops (often coupled with Discord) to play. Common Virtual Tabletops include Foundry VTT and Roll20.

I know you are defending CIG

Am I? News to me.

 

[Richard Bong]

hahahahaha really?? die in character creation? sounds harsh!


Let me know what you find i might be interested it has been a long time since i played a game like D and D.

Traveller has a unique perspective, you don't start as some kid, fresh off the moisture farm, though you can. typically you start as a veteran, with 16 to 20 years experience.

Weapons tend to be very deadly as you'd expect, with a reliance on melee weapons for shipboard use (you don't really want live fire where you can damage the flight controls) and firearms that run from slugthrower pistols, gauss weapons that fire 4mm needles at at hypervelocities, fusion guns (think plasma gun, but you keep the plasma a little longer until it starts a fusion reaction, through nastier vehicle weapons, through starship weapons all the way up to battleships, where the ship is built around a particle accellerator that runs the length of the ship.

 

[Sirus7264]

Traveller has a unique perspective, you don't start as some kid, fresh off the moisture farm, though you can. typically you start as a veteran, with 16 to 20 years experience.

Weapons tend to be very deadly as you'd expect, with a reliance on melee weapons for shipboard use (you don't really want live fire where you can damage the flight controls) and firearms that run from slugthrower pistols, gauss weapons that fire 4mm needlesat at hypervelocities, fusion guns (think plasma gun, but you keep the plasma a little longer until it starts a fusion reaction, through nastier vehicle weapons, through starship weapons all the way up to battleships, where the ship is built around a particle accellerator that runs the length of the ship.

yeah you got me interested lol just would be weird online.

 

[Richard Bong]

yeah you got me interested lol just would be weird online.

I'm looking. I'll let you know once I figure out what software to use and get it set up.

 

[Montoya]

I'm looking. I'll let you know once I figure out what software to use and get it set up.

Our plan here is to keep you talking for a few more months, then suddenly the game will be out!! :D

 

[Richard Bong]

Our plan here is to keep you talking for a few more months, then suddenly the game will be out!! :D

ROFLMAO!

 

[Shadow Reaper]

I think it’s silly to say SC is a live released game. If we can say that, we can say anything.

We were not invited to play a released game. We were invited to playtest.

 

[Bambooza]

I think it’s silly to say SC is a live released game. If we can say that, we can say anything.

We were not invited to play a released game. We were invited to playtest.

We are free QA and honestly I know many a developer who is envious of the large QA pool CIG has amassed and conveniently pays them for the opportunity.

Thinking more on this and something @Richard Bong said in regards to a treadmill in the other thread got me thinking. While I do not see CIG sitting still I do see a lot of toil on top of a lot of significant events that have led to a lull in any large content drops. From them changing their focus from Vers incremental game dev focus to SQ42 lead development and introduction of more completed game features (unknown if and when this will start happening) to the impacts of covid and lockdowns to restructuring and relocating offices it really has been a trying 3 years. But we also saw a similar uneasiness and missing of goals and targets leading up to the release of 3.0.

Not to say this is not all outside of CIG's control as they have a great deal of tech debt that is costing them dearly in revisiting lots of assets and code (In fact they were just talking about how the update to the new graphic engine is going to cause more rework of assets) I am not convinced they are utterly crippled by it at the moment. While I have seen countless projects fail due to scope creep and the inevitable refactoring treadmill of doom CIG has been able to expand its workforce to keep up with the expanding vision for now.
While @Montoya is right in that this game should never be finished there is a distinction I'd like to make between being finished and having gameplay elements added. It's one thing to have a race car that doesn't look good and is not necessarily the fastest and it's another to have drawings of a racecar that is never functional as you continue to tinker with the engine.

 

[Raven_King]

Can I ask if the main folks participating in this thread are familiar with agile development, and the concepts behind it? What is Agile? | Atlassian, by a software vendor that makes some of the best and most widely used tools in agile software (and definitely knows what it is talking about) has some of the clearest and best explanations I've read.

TL;DR nearly all large-scale software - including Star Citizen and Squadron 42 - is developed using agile methods, not 'big bang' or 'waterfall' methods that were more popular 20 years ago. Those methods had defined end goals, measurable progress and sooner or later, delivered a finished product. That was not very good, missed some of the original design objectives through de-scoping and misinterpretation, did not account for changes in the market or changes in circumstances since the design was agreed. They were still often late too!

From what @Richard Bong wrote in his posts on this thread, I think he is probably very familiar with both methods and I would be amazed to hear anything other than that he understands the eventual advantages of an agile approach in getting, perhaps not by the most efficient path possible (far from it!) but eventually, to a much better end product, much more suited to users' (in this case, players') needs. Please tell me if I'm wrong about any of that, Richard!

So... is it possible your frustration with an apparent lack of measurable progress something to do with you preferring a different measure of progress to the one CIG (and nearly all other large software vendors) are using? I.e. some proportion of completeness of some overall defined end goal, like we used to have in waterfall methodology software projects, rather than story points, or user value, delivered over time?

I absolutely agree with you that at some point you have to rein in scope creep, and aim for a minimum viable product that launches with the level of polish end users expect. And it's taking a frustratingly long time for CIG to decide to go for that and have a beta, or full release. But my point is, until they decide to do that, they CAN still measure progress in terms of the point-value of user stories delivered. It's not totally unmeasurable, in my opinion. It's true we/CIG can't measure overall progress because there isn't a rigid, clear definition of what the end objective is. But, per the benefits of agile, the absence of such a rigid design and end goal specification is a good thing, not a bad thing.

 

[Mentalic]

I see alot of similarities between SC and certain other released live service games. Let's take DCS for example. Like SC, players pay for ships. Like SC, it has gameplay that is buggy and frustrating (the campaigns most DCS players recommend you skip). Like SC, many new players have to turn to youtube tutorials to figure out what to do since the game does little to guide them. There are DCS planes and helicopters regularly released in a half implemented and buggy state. DCS calls their planes and helis "early access." I think DCS is considered a "beta" even though it released in 2008 (the beta started in 2012). Folks who like just flying around and enjoying the experience of being in DCS planes are ok with this. They take their screenshots, post them on reddit and keep on flying. DCS is a fine simulation (and a great screenshot generator) but a poor game. Very very similar to Star Citizen - which is a fine experience but a poor game.

Should DCS be called an "alpha" like SC? Should SC be called a "beta"? Honestly, it doesn't matter. Both are released live service games and what we call them doesn't matter all that much.

I think folks hoping for some mystical finish line for SC are sorta kidding themselves a bit. Its a released live service game now. They will slow drip add features - this is the service we are funding by buying more content (through ship sales and cosmetics). Different people will determine when the game is "good enough" but hoping for a feature complete finish line with a 100 systems, single shard gameplay, zero bugs, tons of gameplay loops, top notch AI, etc etc etc will leave you waiting many years (maybe another decade or more). Heck, even if all that stuff makes it in at some point, they will dream up more stuff to sell us.

The game is out now. If the game is super frustrating to you, do yourself a favor; just sell off your stuff and play something else. If you enjoy it right now, even in short spurts, then keep on playing. Jump in, fly around, play Hangar Citizen, play Screenshot Citizen, do some bunkers, trade a bit, mine a bit, etc. But if it has been 10 years of heartbreak, theres no point in punishing yourself with continued disappointment.

 

[Richard Bong]

Can I ask if the main folks participating in this thread are familiar with agile development, and the concepts behind it? What is Agile? | Atlassian, by a software vendor that makes some of the best and most widely used tools in agile software (and definitely knows what it is talking about) has some of the clearest and best explanations I've read.

TL;DR nearly all large-scale software - including Star Citizen and Squadron 42 - is developed using agile methods, not 'big bang' or 'waterfall' methods that were more popular 20 years ago. Those methods had defined end goals, measurable progress and sooner or later, delivered a finished product. That was not very good, missed some of the original design objectives through de-scoping and misinterpretation, did not account for changes in the market or changes in circumstances since the design was agreed. They were still often late too!

From what @Richard Bong wrote in his posts on this thread, I think he is probably very familiar with both methods and I would be amazed to hear anything other than that he understands the eventual advantages of an agile approach in getting, perhaps not by the most efficient path possible (far from it!) but eventually, to a much better end product, much more suited to users' (in this case, players') needs. Please tell me if I'm wrong about any of that, Richard!

So... is it possible your frustration with an apparent lack of measurable progress something to do with you preferring a different measure of progress to the one CIG (and nearly all other large software vendors) are using? I.e. some proportion of completeness of some overall defined end goal, like we used to have in waterfall methodology software projects, rather than story points, or user value, delivered over time?

I absolutely agree with you that at some point you have to rein in scope creep, and aim for a minimum viable product that launches with the level of polish end users expect. And it's taking a frustratingly long time for CIG to decide to go for that and have a beta, or full release. But my point is, until they decide to do that, they CAN still measure progress in terms of the point-value of user stories delivered. It's not totally unmeasurable, in my opinion. It's true we/CIG can't measure overall progress because there isn't a rigid, clear definition of what the end objective is. But, per the benefits of agile, the absence of such a rigid design and end goal specification is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I am familiar with Agile. We used it. There has been lots of misrepresentations of what agile is, though, primarily, not from CIG.

The problem I have, with regards to progress, is the project has no end goals clearly defined. That has nothing to do with Agile. What a "minimum viable product" is, isn't defined.

Vague generalities, and it'll be done when it's done are not sufficient for a definition of done.

Progress is how far you are moving toward your goal. Without a clear goal, you can't measure progress, by definition. Work is not, necessarily, progress.

My favorite example is a treadmill. Working 5 miles per day on a treadmill is great for your health. If your goal is to improve your aerobic conditioning, then that is progress. If your goal is to get two blocks to the store, the work on the treadmill isn't progress, it's just work.

 

[Radegast74]

I'm calling it --> THIS is going to be the next BIG thing:

Sega Thinks Its "Super Game" Could Bank Over $600 Million USD

"Targeting release by fiscal year ending March 2026"

www.nintendolife.com

 

[Vavrik]

Can I ask if the main folks participating in this thread are familiar with agile development, and the concepts behind it? What is Agile? | Atlassian, by a software vendor that makes some of the best and most widely used tools in agile software (and definitely knows what it is talking about) has some of the clearest and best explanations I've read.

Yes. The Manifesto for Agile Software Development. https://agilemanifesto.org with the most important page here https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
And I am in agreement with @Richard Bong, this is not where the problem is - though I disagree somewhat about the treadmill illustration, it's close.

btw I personally would avoid using Atlassian to define what Agile is, and use the descriptions at THIS instead. The Agile Alliance is more from the horse's mouth so to speak.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

The problem I have, with regards to progress, is the project has no end goals clearly defined. That has nothing to do with Agile. What a "minimum viable product" is, isn't defined.

I think we can be certain it is defined. We can also be certain CIG is not going to tell us what the definition is until they reach it. Why would they? We paid them up front. To be sure though, they have defined "Beta" very carefully to pull in as many new players who won't stomach all the Alpha complaints, yet will boost their numbers hugely. The Beta crowd is larger than the Alpha crowd and CIG is counting on this.

 

[Richard Bong]

I think we can be certain it is defined. We can also be certain CIG is not going to tell us what the definition is until they reach it. Why would they? We paid them up front. To be sure though, they have defined "Beta" very carefully to pull in as many new players who won't stomach all the Alpha complaints, yet will boost their numbers hugely. The Beta crowd is larger than the Alpha crowd and CIG is counting on this.

They keep moving and changing what "done" means.

 

[Brictoria]

btw I personally would avoid using Atlassian

Having been forced to use their software and deal with their inability to include functionality to allow merging of accounts (user's email address changes due to new domain or name change and a new account is required\generated) despite people asking for it for 7+ years (It's too hard, they claim) I'd certainly prefer to avoid their products.