this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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Well, I mean, I would have launched it first (as an AAA game), but I'm no game developer. ๐Ÿคท And neither are they, from the looks of it. Good at perpetually raking in money for himself and his family, though!

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[โ€“] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 29 points 8 months ago (5 children)

For those wondering about why such basic features are mentioned here it's because work on Squadron 42 (single player part of the project) moved to the polishing stage and everything created for it is being ported back to Star Citizen (multi player part).

Is it worth an article? It is if you're interested in the game, I guess?

Is SC a perfect project? Of course not, far from it. I do find it interesting however how... angry it makes people and how much they want it to fail. Yeah, I know $1000+ packages and so forth (not needed if you just want to play the game btw).

For those interested in actually checking for themselves whether it's a scam or not, there are free flight events multiple times a year - you get to see the current state of the game with everything good and bad it entails. Surprisingly enough, they tend to bring in more players every single time.

[โ€“] SpacetimeMachine@lemmy.world 33 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Just because the product they are making is quality does not mean it isn't a scam. The game was supposed to be released a decade ago now. They said they had the entire single player finished and ready in 2014. The things they have made are impressive, sure. But after that amount of time its looking more and more like they lied about how ready things were to get more funding, and have been doing that for a decade now.

[โ€“] Asafum@feddit.nl 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It's not that they lied about it being complete, it's that they entirely changed the scope of the game around 2014ish. If I remember correctly they even had a poll asking the community if they'd rather wait for planetary landing which was originally not meant to be in the game.

The original game was freelancer 2.0. you don't land on a planet, you get into a cutscene and then appear in "New Atlantis" (yes I'm referring to star field, that's not a city in SC) then as the story goes a developer made a tech demonstration they called "pupil to planet" showing the ability to continually zoom out from, you guessed it, looking at a pupil and going all the way to space with no loading screen so the had to essentially rework the game from the ground up. The story and a lot of the assets/voice work, etc was all done and "ready" for what that game would have been, but since the change they now had to rebuild a lot of the systems and make new systems for the way the game works now. That's just squadron 42 (the single player game) star citizen the MMO has always been a bit on the "back burner" waiting for SQ42 to complete.

Now that we're past all that, and just this last weekend SC had a majorly important tech test that seemed to go very well, they're putting the last foundational pieces together so they can actually complete the game.

If anyone wants to say it took too long, I'm with you. I backed in 2014 and thought "damn, answer the call 2016? That's a long ass time." but to say it's a scam? They're the dumbest bunch of scammers in the entire history of scamming, Nigerian princes and all, if this is supposed to be a scam.

[โ€“] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I absolutely agree with this point. I think CIG's inability to openly communicate when things go bad is a big reason for the scam allegation (that and loooooots of issues with planning, especially early on). I see it's as a serious problem for a project that presents itself as "open development" (which it is, don't take me wrong, but not as much as it should be).

I think both CIG and players underestimated how long it takes to build a company, tech and two big budget games at the same time. It's 100% on the devs to realize and communicate that, which they failed to do.

For better or worse, S42 is officially in its final stretch. Is it really? Transfer of people towards SC seems to confirm that but we'll see when the game finally releases. When that happens we'll also see whether game taking this long was worth it.

[โ€“] supercriticalcheese@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I thought that they halted development on squadron 42. I will be curious of what comes out after 10 years at the very least

[โ€“] Asafum@feddit.nl 6 points 8 months ago

They didn't, they just had a big announcement on October that SQ42 is "feature complete" and that it's entering the polish phase which is why they moved devs back to SC. The remaining teams stay on SQ42 as so-called "strike teams" to polish and tweak tech.

Source: I follow the development way too much, send help lol

[โ€“] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

On the contrary, the last few years were pretty much fully focused on Squadron, with SC being maintained by (almost a) skeleton crew - hence the slow updates.

Now updates are seemingly picking up, though it's early to say for sure since we only got one quarterly patch so far, with next one probably targeting April-May (depending how porting some of new additions goes).

[โ€“] entropicshart@sh.itjust.works 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If SC simply showed their original roadmap and timeline, it would speak to itself if it is a scam or or not.

As someone who bought in from the start (when everything was bundled), the argument of โ€œnot a scamโ€ fell through when they started to hide their original roadmap.

[โ€“] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Just to clarify, which roadmap are we talking about?

  • The changes to the release view from last year or so?
  • One from CitizenCon after addition of full planet exploration?
  • One from the early days where SC was suppose to be a prettier Freelancer with planets separated by a loading screen and consisting of a small hub for activities?

I'd like to make sure which one we're talking about.

Edit: I'd also like to add, how far are we going with people being scammed?

I can understand this view for early backers (I'm one of them) but what about people who decided to drop money on the game in the last 2 or even 5 years? Were they also scammed despite hundreds of articles about delays, issues and thousands of people yelling about a scam every time SC is mentioned?

[โ€“] bitcrafter@programming.dev 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I can understand this view for early backers (Iโ€™m one of them) but what about people who decided to drop money on the game in the last 2 or even 5 years? Were they also scammed despite hundreds of articles about delays, issues and thousands of people yelling about a scam every time SC is mentioned?

Maybe, maybe not, but is entirely possible to be scammed while also being in a position where you should have known better; the two are not mutually incompatible.

[โ€“] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Of course, but I think it's a bit harder to defend this accusation with all of this info available and the ability to try the game for yourself for free. The latter is what I'd suggest to anyone interested in the game, even if they aren't worried about wasting money anyway.

[โ€“] 5redie8@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah it's honestly pretty fun, but there were juuuust enough performance and stability bugs that I gave up and returned it. I think it has potential and I'm glad someone is doing this.

[โ€“] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Which is why I appreciate them doing free flight events. They don't present the game in the best light a lot of the time but it's a great way to test if the game is for you in it's current form (or even in general). They are also a good way to prevent new players from feeling scammed so there's that.

I feel like a lot of us backed and stayed with this project despite all of the issues exactly because they're trying to do something no one else is willing to risk. It's a rough road, full of mistakes and delays but they're sticking with it, which is more than many people expected.

[โ€“] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee -3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is SC a perfect project? Of course not

Lmao nobody has ever asked or thought of that question

[โ€“] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Some people think trying to "defend" the project means I completely agree with how and what is being done so I'm just trying to cover my bases.