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cronenthal, do games w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'

All I really wanted was SQ42 back when I supported it on Kickstarter. With my 20 bucks there’s no regret, but it’s quite funny where things have gone since then.

I install the latest alpha once every year and am both amazed and disappointed.

I don’t expect SQ42 to be released before 2030 and I do expect it to be a buggy, unoptimized mess when it finally arrives.

I’ve been thoroughly entertained all those years, though.

sp3ctr4l, do games w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'

Scam Shitizen.

I guess if it’s any consolation, our real world space efforts are also largely even more behind schedule than usual, thanks Elon.

NuXCOM_90Percent, (edited ) do games w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'

As a very early backer of S42 way back in apparently 2012: It never ceases to annoy me that The Wing Commander Guy has once again managed to do everything possible to NOT make a fucking Wing Commander. This is, what, the third big clusterfuck and the first one where there was nobody to take it away from him and just finish it themselves? But, whatever.

As a big fan of elite games: I am really glad star citizen “exists” to contrast Elite Dangerous and has led to some truly amazing games in the genre. Some of which actually ARE more Wing Commander than not (Everspace 2 is basically the Freelancer that was promised). Now we just need some studio to make a proper Freespace game.

All that said: I don’t like it but I weirdly keep coming back to the thought process that Star Citizen actually IS delivering on its “promise” to the backers… of the past decade or so. Not the OGs. Fuck us.

Because they were never sold on actually playing a game. They were sold on a dream. It is the same logic by which you watch Aisha Tyler do VO for a Tom Clancy game and think that you and your friends are also going to be super sweaty tier seven operators. Or how you watch your favorite group of online youtubers read off their pre-written jokes and pretend to be shocked while playing “friendslop” games. Or… you are a non-sicko who read too many AARs of Dwarf Fortress and thought you would boatmurder too.

Its the idea of spending money to Dream. You know you’ll never actually do what you saw the pretty people do. But you THINK you will and, by owning a copy of Garry’s Mod that you will never boot up, you think you will too.

Obviously the star citizen heads are spending WAY more than 20 bucks a pop and some are buying multiple megaships they’ll never use meaningfully. But it is hard to not see parallels to the people who buy a DCS plane because they want to pretend that one day they will learn how to fly that jet.

And… truth be told, I think I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of the annual charity streams where Drew Scanlon (The Blinking White Guy) and Vinny Caravella attempt to play Star Citizen and spend an hour or two crashing to desktop, getting confused, and accomplishing absolutely nothing. Hell, I think there were a few years where they never even found each other in the space station?


Also, as much as Freelancer hurt, I’ll never stop laughing/being annoyed that he managed to take a sci-fi movie starring Freddie Prinze Jr AND Baby Busey AND Matthew Lillard and turn it into a charisma-free void with no redeeming qualities. Like, you gotta put some fricking effort into that. Those guys could make reading the dictionary be entertaining.

p03locke,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

As a big fan of elite games: I am really glad star citizen “exists” to contrast Elite Dangerous and has led to some truly amazing games in the genre.

Elite Dangerous has its faults, but goddamn, did it pull something epic and historical with a ten-years-in-the-making final event.

daniskarma, do games w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'

When this game is released the setting is going to be ancient history.

Bonesince1997,

Space, the we already did that frontier.

brsrklf,

It’s a bit fun to imagine that. People of the future playing a game that would be sci-fi to us, but really to them it’s like Oregon Trail.

Gerudo, do games w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'

You know, when they mentioned 8k textures 10 years ago, I laughed because it was so overshooting gaming standards that it was laughable. Now I’m think they will be just on track when it actually launches.

brsrklf,

By the time they launch, they’ll have a game with 8k textures and everyone else will be releasing games for Star Trek’s holodeck.

Flamekebab, do games w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'
@Flamekebab@piefed.social avatar

Game development as a service.

muhyb,

Hahaha, at this point they can coin the term.

p03locke,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

They may have been the first, but the sheer amount of failed disaster projects on Kickstarter, Paetron, wherever is staggering.

Some of them end up being “successful” failures, just stringing their patrons along on hopes and dreams and donations until the well dries up. Star Citizen is definitely the most successful venture of its sort, but only because it’s the highest profile with a bunch of known talent in the mix.

vaultdweller013,

Just to give a more shit show example there’s also Yandere Sim. Theres so much to that shit show that I can’t even get into, mostly cause I’m fucked up on Tylenol. Point is there are multiple documentaries on YouTube about how that fucker just kept stringing folks along and self sabotageing for years.

pyre,

damn that’s good, we should have been using it for this game particularly but also pretty much every pvp survival game as well.

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@pawb.social avatar

My biggest problem with survival crafting games is the balance is always horrendously unfair and is just irritating as fuck, or there isn’t even anything to survive against because they didnt put any kind of antagonists in the game so the building part is completely aesthetic.

The PvP focused ones do both at once! There are no enemy NPCs, and the balance between the human players is stupid AF.

Rose_Thorne, do gaming w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'

Star Citizen is going to be the next game with a generational legacy.

After fans will their copies to their children, still waiting for the official release.

shnizmuffin,
@shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lol avatar

I’m sorry, this license is non-transferable. We run a 20% off rebuy special once every fiscal quarter!

thisbenzingring,

its going to be Daikatana II

kurcatovium,
@kurcatovium@piefed.social avatar

It's already a Daikatana and Duke Nukem Forever combined...

DdCno1,

Both games released and even the N64 port of Daikatana is more fun on original hardware than Star Citizen ever will be.

kurcatovium,
@kurcatovium@piefed.social avatar

I honestly believe SC will also release at some point in somewhat final shape. But that point is still far far away... Until then they'll be teasing us with more promises and will continue practice of their "development as a service" business.

VitoRobles,

Is Chris Roberts going to make everyone his bitch?

kurcatovium,
@kurcatovium@piefed.social avatar

Well actually he's doing it right now. And people are happy to pay him for it.

IvyisAngy, do games w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'

I’ve spent hardly any money on that game. I did the first 20 bucks. Then a 15 to get a tiny mining ship to help get in-game money. But I wouldn’t have even gotten it if it wasn’t for my partner REALLY liking the “game.”

I might like it too… if it actually worked and every bug I’ve ever encountered being perfect for setting all my progress to zero or even backwards. Because you have to buy supplies to do a mission.

So fuck that. I’m not playing it until I can make progress- which will be never.

kureta, do games w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'

I was this 🤏 close to buying squadron 42 years ago, as it was just about to get released. dodged that bullet.

psx_crab,

42 years ago

I heard it’s been in development for a long time but didn’t know it’s this long.

pyre,

this is why you should buy games that are released

p03locke,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Right. Never pre-order games. Ever.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA, do games w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'
@HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world avatar

It’s been in development for 15 years. Duke Nukem whatever was only in dev hell for 14. Y’all ever gonna admit you got scammed?

BlameTheAntifa,

I got enough enjoyment out of it for what little I spent a lifetime ago. I go see whats new every couple years, which is usually quite a lot. The game is still a disaster, but it’s a strangely interesting disaster.

QuoVadisHomines,

Duke Nukem Whatever sounds like the better version of what we got.

zqps,

You can say it’s a bad deal, they are mismanaging the project etc. but calling it a scam is just hyperbole.

entropicdrift, do gaming w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'
!deleted5697 avatar

The bigger context of that quote is basically that they’re heads down and preparing for crunch. The person who said, “I don’t know if we’re going to make it” also said “but we’re doing everything we can to make it happen” (this is my paraphrase, I don’t know if I got the exact wording)

rainwall,

The bigger, bigger context of the quote is that this game was initially supposed to be released in 2014, and now 2026 is looking unlikely.

And yes, im just talking about squadron 42, the spinoff fps of the even later game that is even farther from release, Star citizen.

The 12 years of release date slippage makes people extra wary about any qualifiers or maybes that the devs add, regardless of context.

entropicdrift,
!deleted5697 avatar

Sure, that’s true. I was a year 1 backer, just after the initial Kickstarter ended, so I guess to me that part of the context kind of spoke for itself. Thanks for highlighting it, I honestly do appreciate it.

Sidyctism2,
@Sidyctism2@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I know some of the SC story from knudsens channel, but somehow it never really hit me that they are developing a spin-off of a game that hasnt even released yet

Hadriscus,

it’s a wandering daughter job

B0rax, do gaming w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'

What is the current state of star citizen anyway?

KyuubiNoKitsune,

Yes

t3rmit3,

Un-sarcastic answer, it’s actually in a really good spot. The backend changes they put in over the past year have boosted the per-server player counts like crazy, they churned through most of their ship backlog, and they’ve been running a bunch of story events. Performance is way up, especially for client fps in high-population areas (15 fps this time last year if you were in a crowd, 35+ now).

PCG has been super negative on SC for years. Sometimes very justifiably, but many times not.

Banzai51,
@Banzai51@midwest.social avatar

Disagree. It is still a buggy mess. Many missing features that they promised. Lots of missing basic features of MMOs like no guild chat, no in game guild rosters, elevators and doors still don’t consistently work, they struggle to connect the game loops, game loops don’t consistently work, etc, etc.

t3rmit3,

I haven’t had any elevator issues in a while, though I know some people have with the freight elevators. Guild chat isn’t something I care about, since every guild/clan/alliance I’ve been a part of has always used mumble/TS/discord.

It’s not really that buggy now, and I don’t know what you mean by “game loops don’t consistently work”?

Banzai51,
@Banzai51@midwest.social avatar

Ahhhh, the old “I don’t see that” cope. Balance this against the hundreds of others that say otherwise.

t3rmit3, (edited )

People who aren’t having issues don’t go online to post about it. Since we know the daily player count hovers around 29,000, those hundreds of complaints can still be a very small portion of players, who are experiencing issues.

Edit: Off my phone, so I can type more easily.

The other side to this is that differences between patches can be huge, so reports of a bug that everyone is having could be irrelevant a week later when the new patch drops, but unless you’re checking every post’s date and patch number, you could falsely conclude the bug is still present, or view those bugs as cumulative with bugs that are in the current patch.

The 4.3.x patches are some of the most stable, bug-free patches I’ve played. If you’re insistent on finding faults with anything, you can, and lord knows there are plenty of things to find fault with in SC, but bringing up issues like the ‘deadly’ elevators and doors from last year or older, is an unserious criticism.

Banzai51,
@Banzai51@midwest.social avatar

I’ve heard this bullshit before.

t3rmit3,

Coolio. No one told you you have to play it.

stophavingfun.jpg

blindsight,

Please follow the instance rules if you’re posting here. Reported for breaking the only rule: Bee Kind.

alyaza,
@alyaza@beehaw.org avatar

you’re being pointlessly aggressive about something that is subjective and which obviously cannot progress from the fundamental disagreement you have here, please chill out a bit

Banzai51,
@Banzai51@midwest.social avatar

Aggressive? Hell no. I’m just not being Pollyanna.

floquant,

Both comments are right. It is still a buggy, minimal alpha, but i would say in the last year or two it has become a somewhat enjoyable game rather than a tech demo you’d check a release every once in a while.

Development has consistently been a shitshow, but there really is nothing else like it.

Banzai51, do gaming w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'
@Banzai51@midwest.social avatar

Just 2 years, Turkish!

pyre, do games w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'
ZoteTheMighty, do games w Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it'

After much careful reflection on this news, here is my response: HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I think I could have written this headline 6 years ago.

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