4 ms·

But is it fun?

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
That's a very subjective question, and answers to it will obviously vary based on who you ask. I have fun with it every time I play it, now that it's more or less stable and gameplay sessions don't end with "it crashed and I don't want to spend five minutes loading in again". (This was my 2.x or so experience with Star Citizen.) 3.x builds are a ton of fun and there's a lot of places to see and stuff to do. I've heard about all sorts of features and landmarks I've not yet trekked out to see or tried to do, and this is on a game which "barely has any content" according to some people. The biggest issue right now is that there's no solid incentive to put a lot of time into it. Since it's still in "we reset everything each major patch", I don't want to put time into running missions and accumulating crud that might not be there next time I sit down to play. I personally hesitate to play most MMOs on beta servers for this reason, I feel like I'd rather accomplish things when it "matters". Note that that's just the persistent universe portion, and there's effectively three "competitive modes" in the game as well, with which the leaderboards are shared in the newsletters each week: Arena Commander has both dogfighting and racing game modes and Star Marine has a first person shooter which has some fairly neat mechanics.
- trynewideas 8y ago
  To put it another way: I think you almost nailed it in your previous reply, though I don't think you meant to. > Trying to compare Battlefield 1942 to an approach like Star Citizen is like comparing a deck of playing cards to Battlefield 1942 A deck of playing cards isn't inherently fun. A game is, though. There's a much better comparison of Star Citizen to the deck of cards here, and of BF1942 to a game. You can, and have, created some fun by bending Star Citizen into game-like situations. I have, too! That's totally valid. That doesn't happen as often in BF1942—not never, but many people simply play BF1942 as designed. Is Star Citizen fun, or are you and the people you play with fun? You can list features and functionality all day, but is the enjoyment coming from the game, or is Star Citizen primarily a medium for you to create your own enjoyment? It's maybe a subtle difference. You might even consider it a meaningless one. But seriously: is Star Citizen fun?
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    By that definition, sandbox games are not games, and just something you can make fun in if you bend them the right way. EVE Online is apparently no longer a game, and perhaps someone should tell CCP that.
    - PavlovsCat 8y ago
      > By that definition, sandbox games are not games Even as a little kid, when playing in actual sandboxes, I never considered that kind of playing a "game". Playing tag or hide and seek or checkers was always distinct from just running around in the woods or playing in a sandbox. Even filling up balloons with water and looking for targets on our BMX bikes, even though it was trickier than many games, wasn't a game. Making a bet, having a competition or playing a game, that has additional elements to just having fun with whatever. Not that there's anything "wrong" with "just having fun", or that "just having fun" can't get crazy very complex and tricky! With most games, certainly if they're multiplayer, you can have the sandbox element, too. That is, you can just ignore the rules and turn gameplay features into derpmanship tools. For example, this movie is from clips recorded when a new TF2 map came out, I joined a nearly empty public server, and along with others managed to do everything BUT the objective for 15-20 minutes. I'm the pyro doing the impossible at 3:11 ^^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQlz7kFoXSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQlz7kFoXSc None of these people knew each other. Eg. at 0:58 a guy shows up who isn't in on it yet, ruins the fun, then switches to soldier to shoot projectiles that don't do damage, for even better ping pong. No voice chat, hardly any text chat; all this basically just happened, and it was more fun than many "real" TF2 matches I had. In a normal match you just think "how can our team score", when the objective is "have fun", the feasible permutations for what do you increase by a lot, it's a whole other level of complexity. After watching that movie again I totally forgot what I was arguing, sorry. I agree with games having win/loose conditions, and usually a way to measure better/worse performance, roughly, and therefore sandbox games "not being games in that sense" -- but I think there's nothing wrong with that, and that ideally, you'd have the option for both. I never played Star Citizen so I have no clue how the universe is set up, but I could imagine some regions being more active and contested, where money and/or weapons establishes a pecking order, whereas you can always just fly off to some moon in the middle of nowhere and hold races there, or spell out obscene messages with ship wrecks or whatever.
zamalek 8y ago
You need friends and your group needs to be motivated to find fun. Doing that has resulted in completely new game experiences, and I've been a gamer for 22 years. I've sat with a buddy stranded in a satellite, while our other friend organized a rescue, shooting shit. I've infiltrated a capital ship in order to shut down the shields, so that the rest of my group can board it (after destroying the rest of the fleet). I've participated in the Jump Town shenanigans, on both sides of the law. If you have friends who play it, it is a kind of fun that has been impossible to experience until now. If you don't have anyone to play it with, I can't recommend it at all. You will not have fun. Maybe once there's more to the game.

But is it fun?

That's a very subjective question, and answers to it will obviously vary based on who you ask. I have fun with it every time I play it, now that it's more or less stable and gameplay sessions don't end with "it crashed and I don't want to spend five minutes loading in again". (This was my 2.x or so experience with Star Citizen.) 3.x builds are a ton of fun and there's a lot of places to see and stuff to do. I've heard about all sorts of features and landmarks I've not yet trekked out to see or tried to do, and this is on a game which "barely has any content" according to some people. The biggest issue right now is that there's no solid incentive to put a lot of time into it. Since it's still in "we reset everything each major patch", I don't want to put time into running missions and accumulating crud that might not be there next time I sit down to play. I personally hesitate to play most MMOs on beta servers for this reason, I feel like I'd rather accomplish things when it "matters". Note that that's just the persistent universe portion, and there's effectively three "competitive modes" in the game as well, with which the leaderboards are shared in the newsletters each week: Arena Commander has both dogfighting and racing game modes and Star Marine has a first person shooter which has some fairly neat mechanics.

trynewideas 8y ago
To put it another way: I think you almost nailed it in your previous reply, though I don't think you meant to. > Trying to compare Battlefield 1942 to an approach like Star Citizen is like comparing a deck of playing cards to Battlefield 1942 A deck of playing cards isn't inherently fun. A game is, though. There's a much better comparison of Star Citizen to the deck of cards here, and of BF1942 to a game. You can, and have, created some fun by bending Star Citizen into game-like situations. I have, too! That's totally valid. That doesn't happen as often in BF1942—not never, but many people simply play BF1942 as designed. Is Star Citizen fun, or are you and the people you play with fun? You can list features and functionality all day, but is the enjoyment coming from the game, or is Star Citizen primarily a medium for you to create your own enjoyment? It's maybe a subtle difference. You might even consider it a meaningless one. But seriously: is Star Citizen fun?
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  By that definition, sandbox games are not games, and just something you can make fun in if you bend them the right way. EVE Online is apparently no longer a game, and perhaps someone should tell CCP that.
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    > By that definition, sandbox games are not games Even as a little kid, when playing in actual sandboxes, I never considered that kind of playing a "game". Playing tag or hide and seek or checkers was always distinct from just running around in the woods or playing in a sandbox. Even filling up balloons with water and looking for targets on our BMX bikes, even though it was trickier than many games, wasn't a game. Making a bet, having a competition or playing a game, that has additional elements to just having fun with whatever. Not that there's anything "wrong" with "just having fun", or that "just having fun" can't get crazy very complex and tricky! With most games, certainly if they're multiplayer, you can have the sandbox element, too. That is, you can just ignore the rules and turn gameplay features into derpmanship tools. For example, this movie is from clips recorded when a new TF2 map came out, I joined a nearly empty public server, and along with others managed to do everything BUT the objective for 15-20 minutes. I'm the pyro doing the impossible at 3:11 ^^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQlz7kFoXSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQlz7kFoXSc None of these people knew each other. Eg. at 0:58 a guy shows up who isn't in on it yet, ruins the fun, then switches to soldier to shoot projectiles that don't do damage, for even better ping pong. No voice chat, hardly any text chat; all this basically just happened, and it was more fun than many "real" TF2 matches I had. In a normal match you just think "how can our team score", when the objective is "have fun", the feasible permutations for what do you increase by a lot, it's a whole other level of complexity. After watching that movie again I totally forgot what I was arguing, sorry. I agree with games having win/loose conditions, and usually a way to measure better/worse performance, roughly, and therefore sandbox games "not being games in that sense" -- but I think there's nothing wrong with that, and that ideally, you'd have the option for both. I never played Star Citizen so I have no clue how the universe is set up, but I could imagine some regions being more active and contested, where money and/or weapons establishes a pecking order, whereas you can always just fly off to some moon in the middle of nowhere and hold races there, or spell out obscene messages with ship wrecks or whatever.

zamalek 8y ago

You need friends and your group needs to be motivated to find fun. Doing that has resulted in completely new game experiences, and I've been a gamer for 22 years. I've sat with a buddy stranded in a satellite, while our other friend organized a rescue, shooting shit. I've infiltrated a capital ship in order to shut down the shields, so that the rest of my group can board it (after destroying the rest of the fleet). I've participated in the Jump Town shenanigans, on both sides of the law. If you have friends who play it, it is a kind of fun that has been impossible to experience until now. If you don't have anyone to play it with, I can't recommend it at all. You will not have fun. Maybe once there's more to the game.