Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 Screenshots

The game's scope has expanded beyond just dog fighting, and it made that expansion years ago. None of the people that are giving him money just want a dog fighting sim. They want racing, they want FPS, they want dog fighting, they want exploration, they want a single player campaign. And they want it wrapped into a nice package. Instead of just going into hiding and making all that behind the scenes, he opened the development for the entire community of people who donated/pledged to watch. He released modules as they were completed and allowed backers to not only play them but influence the future of them.

I don't see how that's a crime. And honestly, for the most part, the backers of the game are pleased with how he's handling it. The only people that seem to cry about it are people that have no financial stake in the game. Every time Star Citizen gets brought up on Guru3D there are always random people, who clearly didn't pledge at any point, that come in and just spew streams of garbage all over the thread. On the flipside you have people that have donated/subscribed/pledged who are clearly happy with the game, even in it's current state -- as evident from quite a few of them in this thread. They are adults and they are capable of making intelligent/responsible decisions with their money.

Like I said, I don't know if the game will ever be completed or be a financial success or ever accomplish what it set out to do. But it's pretty clear that Chris Roberts is working on it. The money didn't go to waste, it didn't just close up and the entire project get scraped. It's clearly being developed, they are clearly hiring top talent (like Gary Oldman and Mark Hamill) and they are clearly developing and releasing modules.

 

Are you saying we shouldn't be hyped about the new drivers because we are :nerd:

 

Also it's good to point out that Star Citizen and Squadron 42 are pretty much two different things. Star Citizen is the "MMO" part (kinda like Freelancer's multiplayer). Squadron 42 is single player game (epic story etc.).

Latest S42 teaser looks great:

Shadows are horrible at the moment but they are working on it. Current ones are buggy and visually subpar compared to anything else. It kinda shows that the CryEngine's shadow system is not designed to handle large areas.

Controller optimisations are the last thing they do once everything is more or less final. Also flight model is constantly changing and it receives huge update in 2.0.

I don't. In Elite there's no localised physics on ships, no FPS, no exploring your ships (AFAIK)... nothing interesting. In Elite you can just fly. It doesn't take much resources to achieve that.

 

Can't really comment on the on going additions and weather it truly is what the community wants. I can however question is that what the ORIGINAL investors wanted? The guys who did pay for just the dog fighting space sim? The guys who are now waiting for the completion and final release of a polished and completed game that they paid for but are instead having to wait while module and feature after feature is added to the game because 'the community' wants it?

I can see where Looby is coming from, what those original investors bought in to way back when is certainly not what the game is now or is planned to be. Now maybe the dogfighting module is amazing maybe it is a fully contained full purchase game that cannot be improved and has all the content it will ever need (I doubt it I've seen some of the let's play and it looks boring at best and just plain awful at worst, just opinion.)

I am not an investor in this project, as it looks now chances are I never will, but I can say that if I had bought in at the start for one type of game only to find that the developer has decided to add features I never signed up for while only giving me a half finished version of what I originally paid for, well I'd be a bit annoyed.

Saying that changing the refund policy and release timings allowed for refunds in the EULA (i.e giving the developer more time to meet release dates) is seriously dodgy in any ones books.

Saying that I agree with the idea that this game will never be released, while it is drawing in cash under the guise of adding new content it will forever be in a pre release state with the final release only coming when the cash finally runs out.

 

I understand Chris Roberts dream and ambition but i also think he's biting off more than he can chew.

I don't know if his vision can even be realized with current tech and especially using DX11.

Surely this project must be an absolute nightmare to accomplish and work straight out the box on all systems.

I just don't think DX11 has the draw calls or raw GPU power enough for this game.

I think the game will get finished and Chris Roberts does make amazing games but i honestly feel that this game will be a failure in some regards and Chris won't be able to pull some magic out of his arse to save certain dreams he has.

PS. I'm not saying it will be a bad game but i'm betting his vision can not be 100% completed with current hardware and sales will be smallish because Requirements will be ridonkulas.

 

That is the thing I personally want.

Any of you SC defenders care to speculate when that will happen?
FYI, I already backed the Kickstarter a while back.

 

Actually he already delivered on most of the original kickstarter goals:

The only one that is still being worked on is Squadron 42, which they've shown off recently -- it's supposed to be done by 2016. Pretty much all the other things are stretch goals that have been added along the way.

http://cliqist.com/2015/03/11/star-citizen-stretch-goals-what-where-are-they/

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

And again, the game really hasn't been in development that long. People think it's long because it made media and was announced before it was even in development. But most of the heavy work only started 2-3 years ago and they had to build an entire studio from scratch. 2-3 years is pretty normal for regular AAA games, Mirror's Edge has been in development for 3 years. Fornite by Epic Games is now at 4 years. Witcher 3 was also 3 years. Yet all these companies already had established studios and pipelines for content development. Cloud Imperium had to create all that from scratch before it even began the game.

Idk. I just feel like Chris Roberts doesn't deserve Peter Molyneux levels of hate. He's delivered multiple successful games in the past and it's pretty clear that they are working on on developing this one. Yeah the project has run into delays as the scope has expanded -- but at least you can track it's progress and see the development first hand. I personally haven't backed it and probably never will because I don't care for space simulation games -- but I don't see an issue here.

It's set to release late 2016. They showed off a bunch of the motion capture sequences and part of the initial story line a few months ago. There was definitely some bugs and rough edges but with most of the modules finishing up it should come together pretty quickly. He needs it to launch to continue funding the rest of Star Citizen -- backers get it for free but the rest have to pay for it. So if he doesn't finish it by 2016 his company is screwed for the future anyway.

 

Thanks for the update

 

Reminds me a bit of Return To Proxycon

 

Looks really great...can see the graphics are fleshing out now. Very nice. I do wonder about the selection of the Cry Engine, however. But, maybe it was just the best available at the time.

I don't see any comparison between the games. SC is being compared now because the game is still a fair distance out, but when it ships I think all such comparisons will simply...fall away. I don't see ED being in the same league, really.

 

That's one reason I generally avoid looking into this game too much. I'm trying not to get too hyped up so I'm avoiding playing/reading about SC. I was a huge fan of Privateer and later, Freelancer so this game should scratch that itch. The "X" games are grand in scale too but the learning curve is quite steep.

Space games used to be a staple of PC gaming. I miss stuff like Xwing and Tie Fighter (not "XW vs TF").

 

but and it's an important but, he hasn't delivered the completed game that meets ALL the Kickstarter goals, even the extended stretch goals actually run in to 'we have yet to announce new future stretch goals', basically what I said 'give us cash and we will keep adding stuff to the game' but with that ideology the game will never be finished.

Surely the more you add to the game the harder it becomes to bug fix issues, the more you have tied to certain modules or parts of the game the more you are likely to break by trying to fix things, at some point someone really needs to step in and say 'let's set a proper objective on what we want to achieve and make sure that we meet this objective and make sure that everything works and works well.

I mean the dog fighting module is meant to be finished yet they are still tweaking the flight dynamics (at least someone told me this the last time a SC post came up) how can the dog fighting module be finished if the flight dynamics haven't even been sorted? Flight dynamics aren't a tweak or a nerf to a weapon to balance things, it's kinda pretty fundamental to dog fighting.

Hating anyone for that is just stupid but don't they both have a history of over promising on games and then being forced to under deliver usually as a result of outside interference?

The issue here is with no outside interference he has the utter opposite of what he had in the past and may never actually finish the game because he believes it can always be improved on by adding stuff to it.

 

after going through a few of those images, I thought I was looking at a new Alien: Isolation area. looks good though and am excited to see how it performs on release

 

Shhhhhhhh

Don't say in public, somebody could think the next drivers are a little bit overhyped!

 

That was sooooo cool... I kind of wish it kept going *__*

 

I'm laughing your inability to read?

And, don't call me an idiot - that's what is known as 'projecting'.

 

Never knew Gary Oldman knew how to code, but Mark Hamill? The guy from the dog commercial? Not exactly 'top talent' is it? The only reason he was in the first star wars movie is because the lacked funds...oh, snap!

 

Oh, I read backwards, sorry for the double quote.

Why was it not released? Hmm? If the most critical and singular point of the game with the highest level of interactivity is complete - why is it not released and on the market? Surely, if this was on the market and had actual gamers playing it from the broader spectrum of the gaming community - then the amount of feedback that can be given to the developer would be higher? And this would make any future expansions like playing golf on a moon better? That would help the community more? Which would make the game better?

See? This point is unflappable, and there is nothing anyone can say which states otherwise.

Don't tell me what they are 'working on' and 'that looks interesting/cool/great/awesome' because none of it matters if the end gamer will not use it or have any interaction in it, because to get to another moon to play golf you gotta fly there, and that will involve dog fighting. As will moon mining. As will exploring.

And if anyone says there will be FPS and racing in the game - I say that is very very very very bad for the rest of the game, as you then have got people who bought the game wishing to dogfight with other players, and they are all playing the fps element of the game.

My prediction(s) is/are as follows:-

1) There will not be a release until the money runs out.
2) Initial release will cost whatever the market will tolerate.
4) Additional elements will be chargeable, or possibly be released under their own game release. In other words, funds apportioned for development to FPS or racing potentially would have been to fund the development of additional games. This means that people backing these elements potentially have been lied to.
5) CR will 'do a Peter Molyneux': release the game, let the critics lambaste it, announce a new game which will 'be better than the last game' and cite 'lack of funds' as to why he could not 'achieve his vision for the game' and show some photoshop illustrations as potential mock-ups. And we will all go full circle.

 

Between this thread and the TEEVEE thread, can't we ban this kid for trolling yet?

It is released. We went over this already. You can buy it right now for $50 and dog fight all you want. You may not consider that a game -- but that's what the original kickerstarter promised as far as multiplayer goes -- a dog fighting module -- it's out, it's done, it's playable. Squad 42, the single player component, comes out in 2016. They already showed a bunch of it off at their twitch event thing. Again, I don't see the issue here.

Movement in CS:GO is constantly being tweaked, how is that any different? Is CS:GO not a finished game? They have $250,000 tournaments in it.

I mean look -- the dog fighting module was just supposed to be the multiplayer component to the original game, which is Squadron 42. Squadron 42 is still being developed with a set release time for 2016. So if it does get released in 2016, it's 4 years after the initial round of funding. 4 years is pretty standard for a game to be developed. So I'm not seeing what the issue is here. Most of the other stuff, like the FPS module for example, is being developed by a completely different studio based out of Germany.

As far as his other games, from what I can see Wing Commander, Star Commander, Freelancer and Starlancer all received really high reviews. And those games are partially the reason why people were initially so excited about Star Citizen, because they knew he was developing it. I personally never played any of them so I have no idea. Contrast that with Peter Molyneux who couldn't even raise $1M because no one believes his lies anymore and no I don't think they are the same at all.

Now obviously if Squad 42 is delayed till like 2020 and completely fails at being a good game -- then sure, but that hasn't happened yet.