I’ve heard this argument thrown out before but my issue is always that you have a permanently declining user base since you can’t buy more copies. This is a band aid delaying the inevitable. It will not allow a game like this to live forever.
There’s one thing, however, that Harrison recommends studios do above all others when sunsetting a live service game: let players keep playing the game on their own servers. Before shutting down Knockout City, Velan released the game as a standalone Windows executable with private server support. It’s still available to download.
That bit about “every designer or artist has a bunch of shit ideas and just picks their best 5%” is SO TRUE. Remember this when you’re doing something creative and don’t feel great about it. Just keep doing it.
How hard is it for game devs to organize themselves and start companies that respect them? Worker-owned game studios. Is that hard? Are they unionizing?
The expected profit margin when you try to make a genuinely good passion project is razor thin, if it’s there at all. There are two kinds of games that make money: outliers and whale hunters. When we think of good games proving the games industry wrong, we’re thinking of outliers. The rest of the industry is whale hunters.
In theory you could create some kind of game dev collective where a bunch of indie devs all work on their own thing under the same umbrella, and if any of them make it big, they all split the take to fund the group going forward. But you run into all the same logistical difficulties that normal communism runs into: what does leadership look like? how do you hold members accountable? what does contributing look like when development hell can look like not delivering anything for years, or forever? who pays the lawyers who have to figure that all out?
Silicon valley often had “incubators” which are kind of a middle ground between collectivism and capitalism. An investor funds a shoe string budget to several start up ideas to create minimum viable products. If one looks promising they all switch to shipping that and they’re all part owners.
I’m kinda surprised we don’t see more game dev incubators. Maybe indie outliers are just that rare.
Also, support games made with passion and love (even if technically means supporting a big corporation). Legends of Runeterra is an example of a game that absolutely hit the nail on the head (there are zero predatory systems, despite being a collectible card game!), and now has been punished for it.
Honestly, especially games made by big, publicly traded companies. They make games based on marketing algorithms. Buying good games only improves the algorithm.
We’ll have to wait until it’s out to see. The statement that they want to minimize grind? Hoooooly crap, that’s the exact opposite of what RS was. To get to the higher levels and max a skill, it was basically a mental game of sticking to the best xp/tick strategies, which could still take a month or more to max one skill. That was after they had introduced a bunch of new things. The original days? It was a third job on top of it being the second job to do it in months.
It was also really fun for being so simplistic and had a good mix of self-aware humor, so I have hope for their new game.
RuneScape to me is about having an easy enough game that you always have something to do on.
I’ve got a few 99s, but I still have plenty of others to do, and if I don’t want to do skilling, I can go do some of the plethora of quests I haven’t done yet. If I don’t want to do either of those, I can go find quite a lot of different things to do ranging from very easy to very difficult.
I’m sure most people stick around for the grind, but for me, it was always because there was SOMETHING for you to do. :)
The most misleading statement ever though. It’s only halfway XP-wise. You will have unlocked much better training methods, gear, support skill, possibly more money, than earlier in the skill. Time-wise you’re definitely way over the halfway point.
Sure its playable but the game is still (and i think always will be) lacking the VAST majority of features they’ve been talking about for more than 10 years.
Like what? What features specifically have they been talking about (for more than 10 years) which have yet to be implemented? Most of the core systems seem to be there, just seems like they’re polishing up what’s already in the game.
The last one that’s missing is IIRC Jump-points and they’re adding that within 3 months. They’re still fleshing out salvage and the dynamic economy stuff, but the initial implementation is there.
I could have sworn when I pledged in 2014-2016 (can’t recall at the moment) I pledged cause Squadron 42 was hyped to be released in a much shorter time. I’m not complaining, I spent some more cash on it, but I thought I was going to get a fancier single player space game before now. I loved Wing Commander as a kid, even had to get a tech to figure out the highmem.sys and possibly other optimization in the windows .bat files to even play so wanted to play the newest of Chris Rpberts.
Of course maybe I misunderstood at the time and it wasn’t supposed to be coming that soon, which is why I’m not bothered even if it passed, I think they are trying but got into feature creep. I haven’t logged on in over a year now but I keep an eye on things to try when it seems interesting and get use out of my HOTAS.
Since you’re replying to every comment I’ve made - Alpha still doesn’t have a set meaning. It changes between people who use it.
Logging in and doing the content you couldn’t do when you originally bought it still means it’s progressing and yes, it qualifies as a game no matter how mad that makes you.
What part of “it’s still being fucking developed” keeps getting past you bud? “It’s just a tech demo, it’s not a complete game” - no fucking shit. You being pissy that it’s not done as fast as you want it is entitlement and you should really grow the fuck up.
In its initial debut on Kickstarter, Star Citizen was marketed as “everything that made Wing Commander and Privateer / Freelancer special.” The proposed game was claimed to include a single-player story driven mode called Squadron 42 that would include drop in/drop out co-op, a company-hosted persistent universe mode, a self-hosted, mod friendly multiplayer mode, no subscriptions, and no pay-to-win mechanics. The initial estimated target release date was stated to be November 2014, with all proposed features available at launch. Additional promised features included virtual reality support, flight stick support, and a focus on high-end PC hardware.[3] While the initial release would be targeted for Windows, Roberts stated that Linux support was a goal for the project after its official release.
Cool, too bad it’s one of the worst pay to win games. Last time I checked you had to pay real money to buy in-game stuff and the prices were by no means pocket change.
It really isn’t though. For one you don’t “have” to buy anything except a starter package for $45, everything else is optional if you want to support development. There also isn’t really a “win condition,” there’s PvP, but it’s not like ranked matches or whatever.
Also those people buying the largest most expensive ships are going to be in for a rude awakening. You will have costs for managing ships that currently isn’t in the game, but when it is I imagine the big spenders will bankrupt themselves (in game currency). There’s also the fact that ships larger than a one seater will need crew so you can’t really do much with them on your own.
The prices of ships can be absurd, but I think the people that buy them are just shooting themselves in the foot. I’ve been a backer since 2014 and aside from the starter ship I only bought one “extra” cheap shuttle because I love having access to it through any wipe even though I could earn it in game fairly quickly.
Damn, as of years ago you’ve been able to buy new ships with in-game currency. You’re not even keeping up on the game you’re bitching about. Sure you can always buy better ships with real money, you can have whatever reservations you want about that, but calling it pay to win seems like a stretch. Elite Dangerous has long proved space battles are often a skill issue.
Chris Roberts has always had the ambition for a space sim where you could truly do anything, but never had the resources to actually create it.
So what is Star Citizen supposed to be?
An open world sandbox where you, a citizen of the stars, can choose to be Whst you want. A space trucker? A pirate? A bounty hunter? A smuggler? These aren’t new things in the space sim genre, but Star Citizen wants to make these aspect less like a game and more like a life sim.
So instead of clicking a few buttons to fly your spaceship, your character wakes up in bed, has to manually walk over to the ship hangar (maybe take the train there, if you’re on the city planet. Yes, the train runs on a schedule), manually access the hangar via elevator, climb into the ship, activate the ship, request take-off from control, wait for the hangar doors to open, and then you fly your spaceship.
This level of granular detail is meant for every aspect of the game and is the reason why Star Citizen will never get done!
Y’all have been burned too much, so when you see someone creating something bright and exciting, all you see is fire. Stop reading clickbait headlines, stop taking the word of tinfoil hat loonies just because it satisfies your irrationalinal desire to hate this game. They get so much wrong and manipulate the rest you’ll feel like a fool when you see for yourself. Try the next ree fly, face the cognitive dissonance and make up your own mind. Then get frustrated with the manufactured outrage that tricked you from having fun with us this whole time.
Gaming journalism is about generating clicks for shareholders, full stop, but you’ll believe them over an independent studio run by a guy whose career is full of beloved, well made space games. You have fallen into an enshittification trap and are missing out because of it.
Look at the number of comments on posts about hating star citizen. If you were an unscrupulous gaming news company, generating Star Citizen drama equals clicks and money. Go watch the weekly Inside Star Citizen episodes or dev livestreams, read the massive monthly reports, use the dev tracker to communicate with one of their thousand employees on the forums. This is a game being made in good faith. How is a constantly growing playerbase and financial success somehow considered a sign this game is bad? How does spending that money on development , pushing out massive quarterly updates and inventing new gaming tech mean this project is dead? How does the most openly developed game out there mean they are clandestine fraudsters? It’s the shareholders of gaming news who are trustworthy here? Think critically, don’t just feed your initial reaction.
People don’t make fun of starcitizen because “games journalism”. They laugh because it’s development hell is funny. Even if a satisfactory product come out the other end, it’ll still be an internet legend.
Star citizen exploits its userbase with a never-ending drip feed of bite-sized consumables, just as long as you keep feeding the machine.
This is not some poor little indie dev. They have taken over 600 million from they’re users, and have nothing finished to show for it. I treat them with the same distain that I do companies that trive on lootboxes and live services, as they all work from the same base template. At least the live service people made a game before squeezing every penny out of people.
I “bought” this game when I was in high school. I’ve graduated high school, college, and I’ve been in the workforce for 7 years. Still no game.
So yes, they should figure out this game is going to be, set a launch date, and work towards that schedule. This forever-in-development thing they have going on is ridiculous.
Edit: Alright, it’s not fair to say “still no game.” There is a game you can download and play, but the question I have is does it have all the bells and whistles you expect from a complete game, or is it a technical demo with some game features? See my other comment in this comment chain for why my opinion is what it is.
“Still no game” see, this bad faith shit you do is just chef’s kiss. You can go play it right this second. Their updates to this point are open to play. Right now. “Still no game” isn’t just dishonest it’s a fucking lie and you keep saying it.
They don’t have to set a launch date, they don’t have to put down in writing for you what the game is going to be, and they have roadmaps and are updating the game constantly. You are owed fucking nothing more than what you’ve been given and you throwing a tantrum about it isn’t just frustrating, it’s childish.
If you don’t like the development cycle, move the fuck on and stop bitching about it. You have a life, right? 7 years in the workforce. Play a different game and stop letting this one live rent free in your head. As a grown man, that should be pretty easy. Let the developers decide what they do with their game and if you don’t like it, nobody is making you play it. Nobody is making you keep up with it. And the constant posts of people bitching and moaning “Why isn’t it out yet? Fuckin’ scammers >:(” drive me up a fucking wall.
It’s been a decade and people still rage bait this game.
It is pretty easy not to think about this game, it does not live rent free in my brain. I bought the promise of a space ship over a decade ago when there really was no game. The “game” then was here is your spaceship in a garage, stare at it and marvel. That was the whole game.
Over time i’ve seen bits and pieces of it in my feed, I remember when they added being able to fly the spaceship, idk when that was, but again that was the whole game. You could see pretty space but still no substance.
That was really my last experience with it because I think somewhere around this point is probably where I started working full time and stopped really following game news.
Flash forward to today I see this post to see the game is still a work in progress, I shared my opinion.
So if there is a decent game by now with a plot that would be great, I would give it a shot. But if it’s still just a fancy tech demo where you can run around for a bit but there’s really nothing to “do” then I’ll wait another decade.
I still can’t play the one I actually bought, Squadron 42, so no there’s no game. There’s a live demo for star citizen but nothing but promises for the one they said would come out first
So this hyper specific thing that they changed focus from is why you shitcan the entire rest of the game? The story driven campaign that takes a lot more time and resources you’re upset about taking time to develop? Like come on man. This really is Cyberpunk all over again. Just let them work. Go play Helldivers 2.
Yes me pointing out they still haven’t done the part I paid for is shit canning the game. I’m sorry I don’t want to just play a tech demo while I wait for the game.
Also bad analogy as cyberpunk was playable and launched
Notice how “Squadron 42” has a different name than “Star Citizen”? You bought the tech demo for a module of a larger game when you could have waited because clearly you’re not interested in the tech demo. Development isn’t a straightforward process and you had to know that going in. Sorry you think there’s “no game” because the section you wanted isn’t done yet. You’re just wrong.
Cyberpunk released nearly unplayable under the pressure of people threatening to kill the developers for pushing back the release date too many times. Almost like they shouldn’t have put a release date. You seem wildly uninformed about both games.
You do realize the original kickstarter and pitch was for squadron 42 right? And by backing you’d get extras in the form of the MMO Star Citizen universe coming out after the SP Squadron 42.
Honestly I don’t think you know anything about either…
Reasons You’ll Want to Play Star Citizen
A huge universe to explore, trade and adventure in Space is unending, endless and so are your opportunities. Strike out to make your fortune amongst the Stars or sign-up for a tour of duty in the UEE Fleet.
Constantly expanding and evolving universe We’re committed to making Star Citizen a living, breathing universe that is its own entity. It will be a constantly shifting and evolving place for players to explore and affect.
Micro updates rule! We’re not interested in having yearly updates. Once live, we will have a team of people adding content on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. So we’ll always be adding data, stories and campaigns as well as reacting to the needs and actions of the players.
Squadron 42 - A Wing Commander style single player mode, playable OFFLINE if you want Playable offline or online, co-op with friends, you sign up for a tour of duty with the UEE fleet, manning the front lines, protecting settlements from Vanduul warbands.
Life during wartime If you distinguish yourself in combat, you might be invited to join the legendary 42nd Squadron. Much like the French Foreign Legion of old, they can always be found in the toughest areas of operation and always snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, regardless of the odds.
The conflict never ends Upon completion of your tour you’ll re-enter the persistent Star Citizen universe with some credits in your pocket and Citizenship to help you make your way. But in the universe of Star Citizen when one conflict ends, another is just around the corner. You’ll have opportunity to spend more time with your squadron mates as additional Campaigns are released as part of the content update plan.
And unlike most kickstarter scams, they’re still trying to honor that original pledge.
Notice they didn’t promise an exact date? Damn that’s wild. You wanted to be an early backer so congrats, the monkey’s paw curls and now you need to grow up because you somehow haven’t over the course of the development of the game you keep whining about taking so long.
The adults who backed this project with WAY more money than you are still mature enough to put this in the back of their mind and go about their life with the assurance CIG will make good on these pledges. Helldivers 2 is a great game and there’s no kickstarter for you to buy and bitch about later.
It’s been an ALPHA since I first play tested sometime in 2016. In that time Halo Infinite released with a more polished game than this shitty tech demo
Yeah, 8 years. The typical game development cycle. For Star Citizen, the well known highly ambitious game. You people can’t even wait until it takes them longer than a typical fucking cycle to bitch and moan about how long it’s taking. Fuck off already.
This is all just stuff they’re porting over from Squadron 42 now that they were able to move those devs back to SC. I have no idea why this deserves it’s own article.
They should be bragging about the 400 player single shard test they just finished.
400 on a single shard (server) that actually quite a lot. It is far far easier to just throw a bajillion different servers at the problem and only have a relatively small player count per server. Having 400 running smoothly on a single server is a very impressive optimization achievement
Correct and eve has been very impressive with its per server player counts as well. It’s a completely different type of Beast mind you, trying to keep that many players synchronized over something like a first person perspective real-time movement game is a completely different ball game from keeping spreadsheet simulators synchronized.
Still a very good achievement of optimization regardless but definitely a completely different ball game from synchronizing a first person type content where the players are free to just move in whatever fucking weird ways they want rather than linear vector paths
Yeah eve handles it by slowing down time in-game. So each player has less actions for the server to handle per cycle.
Every game has their way of handling it. Cig is doing it via the replication layer and dynamic meshing. IE multiple servers talking to a “boss” server that scales based on needed load without Eve’s crutch of time scaling. Totally different technologies.
Eve’s solution worked based on what they had and needed at the time, but it’s old hat now.
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