To answer your questions specifically:

Is it worth the wait?

• I think so, yeah... But I have been waiting since around 2016.

At least a fun and interesting experience?

• Definitely some fun and interesting experiences that you can't get in other games. There's something for everyone and there are a lot of different things to do: Ship combat, FPS combat, vehicle combat, racing, mining, salvaging, missions, PvE, PvP, Capital ship combat, boarding other ships, hijacking ships, etc. I definitely got my $45 worth of the price I initially paid to back the game.

Is it unique or comparable to a bunch of other games?

• I would probably put it down as a cross between No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous, Gray Zone, and Eve Online.

Most things in this game you can do in other games... But I haven't found any game that has as many features as this game does. And it's kind of ruined space games for me. Elite Dangerous just feels empty compared to SC. No Mans Sky is fun, but severely limited compared to the amount of players you can play with in Star Citizen.

They've reworked the controls a bit... It's still complicated as hell, but tools like GameGlass really help to streamline things like that.

There's a free fly happening from now until Dec 4th, you can rent a bunch of ships for free. Just start off at "Microtech" to be at the right place from the start. You can decide for yourself if it's good or not.

You'll want a beefy CPU and at least 32GB of RAM (16GB is doable with modifying your computer's page file and adding another 16GB from a fast SSD, otherwise the game will usually crash after a few minutes).

It definitely has it's ups and downs, but it has definitely increased in scope. We're finally getting a second system (in testing right now, but not available for free fly players).

It's still a buggy mess, but they've implemented some server crash recovery features so the worst that usually happens is that the game freezes up for a minute or two and then you can keep playing.

It's a lot of fun to play with a group. I haven't found any other game that really scratches the itch that Star Citizen does...

I'm on mobile, and at work, please forgive my formatting and ranting.

OG backer here. It's hard to get into, sure, but theres a guide system that rewards players on both sides (the guide, and the persons wanting a guide). That being said:

There's tons to do and still tons to be added to the game as various systems come online, such as server meshing, economy changes, multi-crewing, engineering, fauna\flora, basebuilding, etc. The game will recieve another full-wipe when 4.0 lands (eta end of this year) so if you choose to get back in now then keep in mind it's largely all for naught. However, I find great satisfaction in these wipes as I collect so much junk/armor/weapons/ships I dont even need. I super enjoy playing it knowing I'm just going to lose my progress soon. That gives me all the time and space I need to learn the game and its loops. Even to make an absolute mess of my hangar. The wipe will clean up my poorly placed couches, tables, boxes, and other flair.

I also need to state clearly, you absolutely do NOT need to put any real world money into game game beyond the Game package that typically includes your starter ship and game client. Every ship can be purchased in-game with AlphaUEC (game currency) with some (or a lot!) grinding. The only ships that will be unavailable are ships not yet released, recently released, or special deals like military only ships or that AMD partnered Mustang or Intel partnered Sabre Raven. Recently released ships do become availble in game after a few months.

There's many game loops currently ready whether your into PvP, PvE, or just being a merchant/hauler. My favories include mining (hand mining or ship mining) and salvage/hull scraping. I find peace in not being a bounty hunter, or really anything PvP. PvE is janky but until server meshing comes out and is polished, enemies and players will remain rubber-bandy and desync'y.

The game gets a lot of hate online but frankly considering the scale they are working with, the systemic'ness of all mechanics, physicalized everythings, and zero loading screens, it makes sense to take a long time to make. I've lost count of the times they rebuilt the engine or even game design. Everyone deserves their opinion but for better or worse take it all with a grain of salt. As with any game, your milage may vary, your preferences and expectations your own.

Asking what you ask is a big question. Many will say its a scam, an awful waste of money, a glorified tech demo, blah blah, but its the kind if sandbox game that can really be made into whatever you want. The real pain in the dick part is leaning all the stuff there is. And there's a lot. And a lot more coming. For now you may be entirely overwhelmed with the keybinds. There are a LOT of keybinds.

If you are wondering what PvP can be like check out Citizen Kate (and Will), or if you prefer some grind and peace check out Farrister. Both on youtube. There's many content creators but those two come to mine first.

You could check out the official Star Citizen channel CitizenCon 2024 and even 2023 to see what's going on as well. They also release weekly docuseries shows (Thusday Inside Star Citizen, pre recorded tech and dev details, or a friday hour long live show on twitch with a VOD uploaded to youtube shortly after with various devs) and have done so since it's inception. Litterally 1000s of hours of dev content that aint nobody got time for. But to see the game's evolution from a Freelancer/Privateer-like game to the monster of a game it is now.

Christ I could go on and on. I think its a great game due to its potential and actual available mechanics, but not everyone will feel the same. Many nay sayers don't seem to understand its a game in development, technically a succesful live service, and belive that what they see right now is the state of things and will be as such forever. But simply put the game just not done yet.

The only constant is change, and like all games being made under early access remember that these people are still making it. Theres no clear blueprint to it's completion. It's game development, not game construction.

Sorry about the long read. See you in the 'verse.

o7

Hi! I'm a whale (a supporter of Star Citizen who dropped more than $1k on it) to answer your questions as well.

Is this game any good?

..."game" is a bit of a strong word. Star Citizen is presently an interactive research and development tech demo with some game-like elements haphazardly stapled onto it like Frankenstein's monster.

But surprisingly, the answer to "is it any good" is, in my opinion, kinda maybe.

This interactive tech demo pretending to be a game has done, and does, some amount of good:

• it attempts, and sometimes "succeeds" (loosely) to do stuff the rest of the industry won't even look at.
• it's fertile ground for developing the skills of a great many talented creative people who MAY go on to do amazing things elsewhere
• the unique and original techniques, approaches, solutions, and technologies they develop will also go on to revolutionize other projects, or even other industries
• on a personal basis, i do have fun playing it more often than not. i like to fly around, i like mining, i like freight hauling, i like salvaging, and i'm looking forward to the repair and maintenance gameplay they recently demonstrated, which may be added """"SOMEDAY™""" within the decade.

If you go into star citizen expecting it to be a game that performs and responds to your actions consistently, and retains your progress and allows you to keep what you earned (so far), you will be disappointed.

But if you go into it expecting
"Model trains, except
it's space ships,
and I can fly them around,
and they have guns i can shoot,
and there's stuff to shoot at,
and I can get up and walk around inside them,
and I can get out and spacewalk around them,
and I can land them on planets and at space stations,
where there are sometimes a few things I can get out and do,
and i can earn credits doing the stuff that i can spend on more ships (until the next server wipe)"
then you might actually enjoy yourself.

If you are already a backer and have a citizen account that lets you log in and recall a ship into a hangar, it's worth trying.

If HAVEN'T already bought in, though, I would indeed advise waiting before you do so, to let the current growing pains settle regarding what they're working on right now...

Server meshing (enabling multiple servers to distribute the load of a single continuous universal instance such that a protracted fleet battle happening over another planet will not cause performance to tank across the entire universe) is a quite disruptive technology that is forcing the devs to re-adapt a lot of extant systems and, as you might know in software development, changing one thing over here might cause several other glitches to emerge all over the place.

ONCE server meshing is stabilized, we MIGHT see certain persistent pain in the ass issues resolve that would normally require an instance of the universe to be rebooted - since, allegedly, additional servers can be spun up and spun down to dynamically unload and reload malfunctioning assets in the universe without having to take the whole thing offline.

that's the big major milestone they're gunning for right now, and also the tightest bottleneck.

it is a fun time and interesting experience though, and when i crave what star citizen offers, nothing else does the job.