Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

OK how about way too excited.

Variise_sl said:

Bad News: You may have been dropped on your head as a baby.

Good News: You are in the running for the most ignorant comment in this thread and there might be a prize.

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I am a big supporter of this game, but I gotta say, i am with Quaid on this one. I get that there is going to be a lot of additional 'features' that they are going to include due to their massively expanded budget, but all this first person shooter shit is just getting ridiculous. It would be fine if this was their focus after they released the promised core features, but they are no where near that point yet. The fact that they are worried about 0 g in their fps module without having the persistent universe even close to ready is really mind blowing.

For perspective, look at the below and ask yourself how confident you feel about their approach when they indicated it would take less than 5 million in dev to launch and yet, here we are, waiting for a watered down Rainbow-Six-In-Space 100 million later..

While I'll admit the concept is cool, nobody pledged to this for zero G rescue missions. That could have been added much later as DLC or expansion content. In fact, that's true of the entire FPS module.

Ya I get it, but we aren't just talking about physics here. We're talking zero G specific assets & animations. I seriously question the decision to include this system at launch considering the delays they are facing.

Mist_sl said:

A dozen other games have promised to add FPS combat later.

Local physics + first person universe is now built into the core of their tech instead of just tacked on. The tech is basically done.

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True to an extent (since its a buggy mess, I would not put it down as "done" before it gets at least functional without crashing servers/clients), but at the cost of at least a 1.5 YEAR delay from original estimates for delivery of the game. Will it be worth it in the end?

Original backers from the kickstarter was promised an expanded Freelancer with a release in the end of 2014, and if that did not happen they would allow for a 12 month delay and then sorta agree to refunds (Terms of Service - Roberts Space Industriesthis is the original TOS as far as I can tell)

Will they post their financials? Hardly. Will they give the KS backers some compensation for the delay? Maybe.They have already re-written the TOS so many times its now hard to tell when/how they will declare this as being failed to being delivered within the time-period (12 months originaly, i.e. nov 2015, the TOS after that was 18 months putting it at may 2016Terms of Service - Roberts Space Industriescurrent TOS) and what they will do when it happens.

Finaly, regarding financials, this is from the current TOS (was 12 months in the KS TOS):

In the unlikely event that RSI is not able to deliver the Game and/or the pledge items, RSI agrees to post an audited cost accounting on the Website to fully explain the use of the amounts paid for Pledge Item Cost and the Game Cost.

This is the current issue people are yelling at eachother about on the internet, does that section of the TOS imply they they HAVE to post their financials in nov 2015/may 2016 or.....

Mist_sl said:

A dozen other games have promised to add FPS combat later.

Local physics + first person universe is now built into the core of their tech instead of just tacked on.


The tech is basically done.

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It's a lot more than that though, how many hours are they going to burn trying to balance their FPS experience, how many hours are they going to burn developing the boarding party experience, or capture mechanics for ships/cargo, or guns (loot) for the first person shooter experience? All of these things are necessary for the fps to even get into the game... more to the point, into a game that isn't built. You can argue that the Squadron 42 components were necessary for ship to ship combat, and you would get no argument from me as that is part of the core experience they promised. This isn't that. This is straight up scope creep and vanity mechanics.

Think about how many MMO's have died on the vine because of net code. Now consider how simple many of those games were that could not get it right vs. the massive complexity of this game. They have yet to come close to proving out that they can create a persistent experience -- the one thing that backers truly wanted and the whole reason they are dropping massive money on virtual ships.

Basically, as backers, we paid for an awesome boating experience. Is it great that the boat they are giving us has a great stereo system, awesome anti-sea sickness mechanics and some deep sea fishing gear thrown in? For sure. Is that going to matter at all though if their is no water? Probably not.

Customer: hi waiter, I'll have the burger and fries please.
Waiter: absolutely! Would you like sliced onions? It's just a dollar.
Customer: you bet. Loves me some onions!
Waiter: cool, that'll be about 15 minutes

*20 minutes later*

Customer: so where's my burger?
Waiter: oh the kitchen is just caramelizing the onions.
Customer: what? You didn't say anything about caramelizing the onions.
Waiter: oh we just assumed you wanted that. The burger is gonna be so much better for it, trust me! Just 20 more minutes!
Customer: fine I guess.

*20 minutes pass*

Customer: so?...
Waiter: they burnt the onions.
Customer: can I get my money back?
Waiter: nope, but we're gonna give you some saut?ed mushrooms for free!
Customer: fuck me. I just wanted a burger.

The fact they are still getting money from their crowdfunding and the average pledge is under $100 tells me people are happy with the direction of their development. So your analogy fails.

Draegan_sl said:

The fact they are still getting money from their crowdfunding and the average pledge is under $100 tells me people are happy with the direction of their development. So your analogy fails.

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Thats a silly conclusion to draw. It relies on the belief that the majority of customers will actually research a product (and its producer) effectively before making a purchase decision. Billions of dollars a year are spent on marketing to deter this exact behaviour.

Edit: oh I get what you're saying. So because there are customers willing to buy the new caramelized onion burger, it doesn't matter that the earlier dude had no idea about the onions and expected a totally different product? Still seems silly.

Mist, I am just curious:

Do you personaly think that CR and CIG has delivered on their promises regarding Star Citizen? Is the development in a good place right now? Because from where I am looking my own answer is no and no so I am just trying to understand the (as I read it) decently positive outlook on the game/development you seem to have.

Draegan_sl said:

The fact they are still getting money from their crowdfunding and the average pledge is under $100 tells me people are happy with the direction of their development. So your analogy fails.

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Its a good analogy regarding the people who originaly backed the project, but on the other hand those people should be able to get their refunds by now so /shrug.

Mist_sl said:

The progress is great for the current scope, the current scope being the end-all-be-all immersive space sim that many people have tried and failed to build for a long time now. You can argue whether the change in scope was smart or even if it was ethical, but seriously, if you had ~100 million dollars at your disposal, would you settle for making a 'little' game?

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Honestly? I would have used the initial KS funds to make the game I actually promised and pocketed the rest.

Mist_sl said:

The progress is great for the current scope, the current scope being the end-all-be-all immersive space sim that many people have tried and failed to build for a long time now. You can argue whether the change in scope was smart or even if it was ethical, but seriously, if you had ~100 million dollars at your disposal, would you settle for making a 'little' game?

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Counterpoint: Notch

So, yes.

Oh, yea I would be super depressed with a billion dollars, too.

Good point.

Make the base game based on the funds required and donated to make the base game. As funds continued to rise, start putting more money into the base technology to enable future expansion, but not directly content and features, which would push back the release date some but not sending it into what right now seems never-ending feature creep. Then, once the the base game and technology were solid, playable, selling, etc, use 'extra' funds for all the extra bullshit they started promising as those extra funds came in. Even better, the basic game would allow people to start playing for what they paid for, increase revenue from people waiting to buy an 'actual' game, and given them a free test-group for future content, and doing it all with more happy customers, less skeptics, and probably making even more money. Who wouldn't have been happy with that?