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I bought a ship relatively late, in 2013. I also built my gaming PC that I'm still using to this day around then hoping to have something beefy enough to play S

by least 5y ago

I bought a ship relatively late, in 2013. I also built my gaming PC that I'm still using to this day around then hoping to have something beefy enough to play Star Citizen. Obviously that was stupid, lesson learned. Chris Roberts has made some phenomenal games that I absolutely love, but even Freelancer was in production hell for years before being reigned in by Microsoft. Star Citizen is pretty much all of those huge ideas he has always wanted to build on but now with an essentially unlimited budget funded by idiots like me that believed he'd actually be able to deliver an actual game. Seeing a progress tracker for it is just a slap in the face. They aren't being held accountable by anyone but themselves and they've proved time and time again that they're incapable of sticking to timelines. They'll just create more awesome looking tech demos that are probably not even linked together into a fully realized and playable game. If Star Citizen could actually deliver everything it promised, it'd be a damned near perfect game for a nerd like me who loves science fiction, outer space, and epic space operas. The idea of zooming through the cosmos on my ship "Freelancer" with a group of friends doing whatever we feel like, exploring new worlds, fighting space pirates, and getting a drink on an old and decrepit space station built a century ago sounds like everything I ever wanted in a video game. Sadly, Star Citizen will never be that game.

sen 5y ago
Another vote for Elite Dangerous. It might not be quite as flashy and beautiful but it’s depth is seriously awesome. There’s so much to do.
sleepy_keita 5y ago
I still play Freelancer sometimes. It's a great game.
- Causality1 5y ago
  Yes, and so easy to mod. The cancelation of the sequel broke my heart.
  - Ralfp 5y ago
    Sequel would break your heart even more, because it was going to be completely different animal with much more linear game and Xbox360 exclusivity.
  - beckingz 5y ago
    It's so good to see the Discovery servers still running after all these years.
    - Causality1 5y ago
      Still running you say? Hmm. I'm stuck in a hotel for a week with nothing but a Cherry Trail tablet. I think I know what I'm spending my weekend doing.
- emptysongglass 5y ago
  Outside the MMO, Earth & Beyond, cancelled way before its time, I have a hard time naming any space game that so effectively captures the wonder, mystery, and fear of space travel as Freelancer. I remember cruising through a desolate system brimming with the broken hulks of battlecruisers to be ambushed by alien Nomads as I tried to beat a hasty retreat with my cargo bay full of high-grade weapons salvage.
bovermyer 5y ago
Elite: Dangerous comes pretty close to your specified dream, what with the new expansion.
- sbarre 5y ago
  A word of caution that the newest expansion is still pretty buggy for a lot of people. The console release is in the early fall, and that's when most of the community expects the PC version to reach a more acceptable level of stability.
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    More than being buggy, the expansion is bleeding players because the on-foot gameplay loops are super grindy (even for Elite) and not very fun in the first place. The xpac has absolutely zero new ship-based content, so people are just going off to play other FPS games that don’t suck. The PC community is already more or less dead just a month after it’s release; Steam player counts are lower than they’ve been in years. Dropping VR support was the final nail in the coffin.
    - sbarre 5y ago
      Yeah given what the core player base seemed to be enjoying about this game (space exploration) I always kind of wondered "who is asking for this?" when they announced they were basically adding a B-tier FPS to Elite.. I suspect internally someone pitched the "FPS is more mass appeal and will draw in new players!" idea and it just went ahead uncontested? I've also read rumours (but enough from different places that they're likely somewhat valid) that Frontier as a company has had a lot of engineering turnover in the last 2 years, which no doubt has an effect on extending and maintaining an in-house engine and product like Elite.
      - spjwebster 5y ago
        To be fair, on-foot gameplay (née "space legs") has been on the promised roadmap since the original kickstarter campaign, and it's a natural extension of the landable planets and SRV gameplay added in Horizons. Frontier definitely tried to appeal to the typical FPS crowd with the on-foot conflict zones, which was a huge misstep: it was never going to be good enough as just a small part of a much larger game, and a lot of the existing players are much more interested in the space stuff. If you ignore the shooty bit of the on-foot gameplay, though, it really does (or at least has the potential to) add to the core gameplay. Being able to walk around station hangers and concourses, prison ships, planetary installations and the planet surface itself is definitely increasing my enjoyment of the game. The general hope is that they're leaving a bunch of the content releases - hints of new ships, SRVs and new thargoid-related gameplay - until the console releases for Odyssey in the autumn so that a large chunk of the playerbase isn't left behind. Sadly that means that us PC players are currently beta testing Odyssey, but after the recent patches it's just about performant and stable enough to enjoy.
admissionsguy 5y ago
It's funny to think the development of Star Citizen started in the same year that Falcon 9 first launched. I like Star Citizen for being the one constant thing in life. Wherever I am, whatever I do, I know there will always be a Star Citizen roadmap to look up.
- alexgmcm 5y ago
  Or at least a roadmap for the roadmap.[1] [1] https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/313367-star-citizen-developer-publishes-a-roadmap-for-a-roadmap https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/313367-star-citizen-deve...
- zerd 5y ago
  Falcon 9 1.0 was announced in 2005, launched in 2010 and cost about US$300 million [0]. Star Citizen was announced in 2010 and has raised over US$300 million [1]. It's wild to me that it takes twice as long and similar amount of money to make a game launch than a rocket launch. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_v1.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_v1.0 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen
  - Sebguer 5y ago
    John Carmack once said that launching a rocket is actually easier than modern game development.
karmicthreat 5y ago
Jumpgate scratched the itch years ago and I was hoping this game would too. But its just not really a game yet. Star Citizen is pretty much the proof that unlimited resources is not necessarily a good thing for a project. Constraints can help keep things focused.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  It's probably the worst and most notable example of scope creep I've ever seen. They could have released a game years ago, but instead they chose to keep piling things on, then realizing their game is already outdated before release so back to the drawing board. Massively mismanaged project, and not just because it was overfunded.
twic 5y ago
The cathedrals that are the most visible surviving monument to the culture of the middle ages took a century each to build. Perhaps the truly great video games of our era will take just as long.
- sumtechguy 5y ago
  Not a bad thought. But this looks more like a project that has been mismanaged like DN4. They have raised well past 370 million at this point. They are basically making Wing Commander Privateer 4 at this point. Game wise they would have been better off shipping something years ago that worked and then iterating on it. However, it seems money wise the route they are going is their business decision and that is doing very well. There are a lot of tall 'promises' made that are not going to live up to the hype. I personally gave up pre-buying any games ages ago. I have plenty of existing games that work. In some cases I have not played some for 20+ years and I am going back and playing them again and it is a blast as I do not remember much of it other than a vague 'I think I liked this one'. What game I do see looks very nice. But there is not a lot of meat on those bones. In its current state looks like a very solid tech demo. When they finally ship I look forward to seeing what they got. But at this point I do not expect much.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  Cathedrals are built of stone and cement - materials that are durable and whose properties change little over centuries. Video games are built on ever-changing hardware and graphics APIs. Consider that, at this point, Star Citizen will span Windows 7 - Windows 11 and three console generations. How much code has changed in SC just to keep up with the march of progress around them?
- arp242 5y ago
  I think Duke Nukem Forever and Daikatana showed us that longer dev times don't necessarily produce better games.
slfnflctd 5y ago
It's a significantly different beast, but No Man's Sky started development in 2013, and I've considered it basically feature complete from the time of the Atlas Rises update (2017). Since then, there have been nine additional free updates, making it much more fleshed out than most games out there. It's hard to look at all that and think what RSI is doing still makes sense at this point. It seems like someone is being a bit of a perfectionist. I can relate, which is why I agree with other comments that a Project Manager who can pull Roberts back from this tendency would be a huge improvement and probably make him less stressed as well.
2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
> If Star Citizen could actually deliver everything it promised, it'd be a damned near perfect game for [...] The thing is that this can be said about many games, but something that will always hold true is that "potential", "vision" and "promises" are not worth much (basically nothing) when it comes to games. The loop of overambitious (or false) promises -> failed execution and delivery is as old as games themselves.
wlesieutre 5y ago
We're almost to one complete star system! Crusader and Orison look pretty great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZDrCUwHclg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZDrCUwHclg Along with that in 3.14, new power management and missile stuff that will hopefully make multi-person ships effective compared to each person in their own ship. I'd like to think this lets them finally settle on a flight model and figure out combat balance, but not optimistic because the planned ship armor/damage system isn't in yet. I'll continue to fire it up for a couple of hours every patch to go sightseeing, but it's a ways off of gameplay that I'd want to sink real time into. All that said, you can get in for $45, and I've paid more than that for worse games. I'm looking forward to my next sightseeing trip to the volumetric clouds of Crusader.
- least 5y ago
  I wanted a game and I believed deeply in Chris Roberts vision because it's something that matches my own idea of a perfect game. Enough so to spend $120 on it sight unseen, without even the hangar demo being out for it. Eight years later and there's still nothing but a bunch of ever-increasing and ever-expanding 'systems' they want to show off. I'm not interested in tech demos. I don't care about how they're adding one more new system into the 'game.' I don't care that they've figured out some beautiful lighting or entry into a planet or gigantic dune-like space worms or an FPS system or a prison system or anything like that. I'm not interested in going sightseeing, even if they are very impressive to behold. My computer that I bought for Star Citizen can't even really run it competently the way it is now. I've given up on it. if they ever do release an actual game, I'll reevaluate then. But frankly I can't share your enthusiasm for it.

by least 5y ago

sen 5y ago

Another vote for Elite Dangerous. It might not be quite as flashy and beautiful but it’s depth is seriously awesome. There’s so much to do.

sleepy_keita 5y ago

I still play Freelancer sometimes. It's a great game.

Causality1 5y ago
Yes, and so easy to mod. The cancelation of the sequel broke my heart.
- Ralfp 5y ago
  Sequel would break your heart even more, because it was going to be completely different animal with much more linear game and Xbox360 exclusivity.
- beckingz 5y ago
  It's so good to see the Discovery servers still running after all these years.
  - Causality1 5y ago
    Still running you say? Hmm. I'm stuck in a hotel for a week with nothing but a Cherry Trail tablet. I think I know what I'm spending my weekend doing.
emptysongglass 5y ago
Outside the MMO, Earth & Beyond, cancelled way before its time, I have a hard time naming any space game that so effectively captures the wonder, mystery, and fear of space travel as Freelancer. I remember cruising through a desolate system brimming with the broken hulks of battlecruisers to be ambushed by alien Nomads as I tried to beat a hasty retreat with my cargo bay full of high-grade weapons salvage.

bovermyer 5y ago

Elite: Dangerous comes pretty close to your specified dream, what with the new expansion.

sbarre 5y ago
A word of caution that the newest expansion is still pretty buggy for a lot of people. The console release is in the early fall, and that's when most of the community expects the PC version to reach a more acceptable level of stability.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  More than being buggy, the expansion is bleeding players because the on-foot gameplay loops are super grindy (even for Elite) and not very fun in the first place. The xpac has absolutely zero new ship-based content, so people are just going off to play other FPS games that don’t suck. The PC community is already more or less dead just a month after it’s release; Steam player counts are lower than they’ve been in years. Dropping VR support was the final nail in the coffin.
  - sbarre 5y ago
    Yeah given what the core player base seemed to be enjoying about this game (space exploration) I always kind of wondered "who is asking for this?" when they announced they were basically adding a B-tier FPS to Elite.. I suspect internally someone pitched the "FPS is more mass appeal and will draw in new players!" idea and it just went ahead uncontested? I've also read rumours (but enough from different places that they're likely somewhat valid) that Frontier as a company has had a lot of engineering turnover in the last 2 years, which no doubt has an effect on extending and maintaining an in-house engine and product like Elite.
    - spjwebster 5y ago
      To be fair, on-foot gameplay (née "space legs") has been on the promised roadmap since the original kickstarter campaign, and it's a natural extension of the landable planets and SRV gameplay added in Horizons. Frontier definitely tried to appeal to the typical FPS crowd with the on-foot conflict zones, which was a huge misstep: it was never going to be good enough as just a small part of a much larger game, and a lot of the existing players are much more interested in the space stuff. If you ignore the shooty bit of the on-foot gameplay, though, it really does (or at least has the potential to) add to the core gameplay. Being able to walk around station hangers and concourses, prison ships, planetary installations and the planet surface itself is definitely increasing my enjoyment of the game. The general hope is that they're leaving a bunch of the content releases - hints of new ships, SRVs and new thargoid-related gameplay - until the console releases for Odyssey in the autumn so that a large chunk of the playerbase isn't left behind. Sadly that means that us PC players are currently beta testing Odyssey, but after the recent patches it's just about performant and stable enough to enjoy.

admissionsguy 5y ago

It's funny to think the development of Star Citizen started in the same year that Falcon 9 first launched. I like Star Citizen for being the one constant thing in life. Wherever I am, whatever I do, I know there will always be a Star Citizen roadmap to look up.

alexgmcm 5y ago
Or at least a roadmap for the roadmap.[1] [1] https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/313367-star-citizen-developer-publishes-a-roadmap-for-a-roadmap https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/313367-star-citizen-deve...
zerd 5y ago
Falcon 9 1.0 was announced in 2005, launched in 2010 and cost about US$300 million [0]. Star Citizen was announced in 2010 and has raised over US$300 million [1]. It's wild to me that it takes twice as long and similar amount of money to make a game launch than a rocket launch. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_v1.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_v1.0 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen
- Sebguer 5y ago
  John Carmack once said that launching a rocket is actually easier than modern game development.

karmicthreat 5y ago

Jumpgate scratched the itch years ago and I was hoping this game would too. But its just not really a game yet. Star Citizen is pretty much the proof that unlimited resources is not necessarily a good thing for a project. Constraints can help keep things focused.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
It's probably the worst and most notable example of scope creep I've ever seen. They could have released a game years ago, but instead they chose to keep piling things on, then realizing their game is already outdated before release so back to the drawing board. Massively mismanaged project, and not just because it was overfunded.

twic 5y ago

The cathedrals that are the most visible surviving monument to the culture of the middle ages took a century each to build. Perhaps the truly great video games of our era will take just as long.

sumtechguy 5y ago
Not a bad thought. But this looks more like a project that has been mismanaged like DN4. They have raised well past 370 million at this point. They are basically making Wing Commander Privateer 4 at this point. Game wise they would have been better off shipping something years ago that worked and then iterating on it. However, it seems money wise the route they are going is their business decision and that is doing very well. There are a lot of tall 'promises' made that are not going to live up to the hype. I personally gave up pre-buying any games ages ago. I have plenty of existing games that work. In some cases I have not played some for 20+ years and I am going back and playing them again and it is a blast as I do not remember much of it other than a vague 'I think I liked this one'. What game I do see looks very nice. But there is not a lot of meat on those bones. In its current state looks like a very solid tech demo. When they finally ship I look forward to seeing what they got. But at this point I do not expect much.
AlexandrB 5y ago
Cathedrals are built of stone and cement - materials that are durable and whose properties change little over centuries. Video games are built on ever-changing hardware and graphics APIs. Consider that, at this point, Star Citizen will span Windows 7 - Windows 11 and three console generations. How much code has changed in SC just to keep up with the march of progress around them?
arp242 5y ago
I think Duke Nukem Forever and Daikatana showed us that longer dev times don't necessarily produce better games.

slfnflctd 5y ago

It's a significantly different beast, but No Man's Sky started development in 2013, and I've considered it basically feature complete from the time of the Atlas Rises update (2017). Since then, there have been nine additional free updates, making it much more fleshed out than most games out there. It's hard to look at all that and think what RSI is doing still makes sense at this point. It seems like someone is being a bit of a perfectionist. I can relate, which is why I agree with other comments that a Project Manager who can pull Roberts back from this tendency would be a huge improvement and probably make him less stressed as well.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago

> If Star Citizen could actually deliver everything it promised, it'd be a damned near perfect game for [...] The thing is that this can be said about many games, but something that will always hold true is that "potential", "vision" and "promises" are not worth much (basically nothing) when it comes to games. The loop of overambitious (or false) promises -> failed execution and delivery is as old as games themselves.

wlesieutre 5y ago

We're almost to one complete star system! Crusader and Orison look pretty great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZDrCUwHclg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZDrCUwHclg Along with that in 3.14, new power management and missile stuff that will hopefully make multi-person ships effective compared to each person in their own ship. I'd like to think this lets them finally settle on a flight model and figure out combat balance, but not optimistic because the planned ship armor/damage system isn't in yet. I'll continue to fire it up for a couple of hours every patch to go sightseeing, but it's a ways off of gameplay that I'd want to sink real time into. All that said, you can get in for $45, and I've paid more than that for worse games. I'm looking forward to my next sightseeing trip to the volumetric clouds of Crusader.

least 5y ago
I wanted a game and I believed deeply in Chris Roberts vision because it's something that matches my own idea of a perfect game. Enough so to spend $120 on it sight unseen, without even the hangar demo being out for it. Eight years later and there's still nothing but a bunch of ever-increasing and ever-expanding 'systems' they want to show off. I'm not interested in tech demos. I don't care about how they're adding one more new system into the 'game.' I don't care that they've figured out some beautiful lighting or entry into a planet or gigantic dune-like space worms or an FPS system or a prison system or anything like that. I'm not interested in going sightseeing, even if they are very impressive to behold. My computer that I bought for Star Citizen can't even really run it competently the way it is now. I've given up on it. if they ever do release an actual game, I'll reevaluate then. But frankly I can't share your enthusiasm for it.