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Inside Star Citizen - BBC Click

Mecha Meister

Mecha Meister

Next-Gen Guru
Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,805
United Kingdom


Star Citizen has raised nearly £200 million with plans to build an entire universe to act as its users playground. The problem is it's been in development since 2012 and isn't anywhere near finished yet. So what's going on? Marc Cieslak has been in search of the brains behind Star Citizen.
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Star Citizen is a controversial game which has received much scrutiny due to things such as its long development process which has seen numerous delays, and the amount of money raised for the game's development.
Comparisons are made to the development costs of other games and movies, such as Avatar's estimated $237 million development costs, and Grand Theft Auto V's estimated $265 million development costs.

Chris Roberts mentions that creating games of this scale and detail takes time, and references Red Dead Redemption 2's 7+ year development time, which over 1000 people worked on.

Here are some of the features currently in the game:

Star Citizen 3.8 OT | Christmas Came Early
  • Dogfighting
  • FPS Combat
  • Explore/Visit - Space, Space-Stations, Moons, Planets, and Landing Zones.
  • Mining - Mine materials in space and on planet, sell them at outposts/space stations/landing zones for profit.
  • Cargo Trading - buy/sell between outposts/space stations/landing zones for profit.
  • Ship management - Tweaking/overclocking components, managing power allocation, fuel and heat.
  • Scanning - Scan for materials/items/people, ships for information about their cargo/personnel/status.
  • Complete procedural missions - Delivery, Ship/FPS Combat, Investigation, Recovery and more.
  • Complete Missions from unique Mission Givers who are characters within the 'verse.
  • The reputation System and your CrimeStat change which missions are available to you.
  • Join an instance with your friends and group up with the party system.
  • Purchase Weapons, Armor, Ammo, Clothes, and Components with each landing zone having unique items.
  • Purchase and rent ships.
  • Limited Character Customization.
  • Experience plenty of bugs, crashes and all the frustration that comes with playtesting an Alpha!
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Aztechnology

Aztechnology

Community Resettler
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
14,147
I genuinely appreciate that they talked about how massive an undertaking developing studios and talent are while building a game off a Kickstarter. Basically starting from ground zero. Vs an established large studio's typical dev time. I think when you realize the scale and scope of what they've even done so far. And how much faster they are getting/how far they've come you really should realize this is not a scam by any means.

There's a zeitgeist around the game that I think is a unhealthy and counter productive to actual discussion. So it was a nice piece...

That being said they definitely went pretty easy on them. I'm a supporter, I won't disguise that. But there are genuine concerns and issues. However, I'm personally still giddy every time I go in. I still think we are a ways off though.
 

Deleted member 6215

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,087
fanboi said:
And that RDR2 was made by an existing studio with 1000s of people working for them already.
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So what. Plenty of Kickstarters have managed to start at ground zero and complete ambitious projects without succumbing to out of control feature creep. I've installed the game periodically over the last few years and every time I'm extremely disappointed. It's nothing like the impression I had when I first backed it. And the business practices that surround it are disgusting.

At this point I'm resigned that my money is gone and if I want to play a spaceship game I'll fire up Elite Dangerous.
 
fanboi

fanboi

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,702
Sweden
fester said:
So what. Plenty of Kickstarters have managed to start at ground zero and complete ambitious projects without succumbing to out of control feature creep. I've installed the game periodically over the last few years and every time I'm extremely disappointed. It's nothing like the impression I had when I first backed it. And the business practices that surround it are disgusting.

At this point I'm resigned that my money is gone and if I want to play a spaceship game I'll fire up Ellie Dangerous.
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No other game, especially KS games, is near this game in scope. You don't see the difference from a KS game with 5 employees compared to this?
 
bounchfx

bounchfx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,664
Muricas
Zero problems with the game taking its time to finish the way they want
Lots of problems with them over promising especially regarding the delivery date and actual scope, as well as the constant milking of their whales which seems pretty like a really scummy way to treat their biggest fans and supporters. But hey maybe thanks to the whales the game will become what it once promised. Will keep waiting and watching on this one.

gonna pop on the video later because I am genuinely curious. Really hope it turns out even close to what the original pitch was.
 
Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
93,216
Where they lose me is with the convention. Appearing at a convention is a undertaking but building a convention for a game that isn't even out yet is something.
 
NuMiQ

NuMiQ

Member
Oct 25, 2017
599
The Netherlands
Slayven said:
Where they lose me is with the convention. Appearing at a convention is a undertaking but building a convention for a game that isn't even out yet is something.
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I think it actually makes some kind of sense. This project is driven by community funds. So in order to keep the project going, there is a need for a certain amount of trust from the community that these guys are actually working on the game and trying to deliver on these promises. Building this trust through videos is not an easy task. They already show a lot more than other Devs (and rightfully so), but just look at the amount of criticism they receive saying they're not open enough. (That is beside a lot of other, imo more legitimate criticism) Being able to directly interact with the people building the game, asking them questions and getting very direct answers (as wel as seeing the passion these Devs have for this project) does more than a hundred videos ever could. So yeah, the convention makes sense to me.
 
Jerm

Jerm

The Fallen
Oct 31, 2017
5,775
I'll say there's been a pretty decent upgrade in the game from when I first bought in around 2014 but man there's a long way to go.
 
Staticneuron

Staticneuron

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,187
Slayven said:
Where they lose me is with the convention. Appearing at a convention is a undertaking but building a convention for a game that isn't even out yet is something.
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So you are saying they lost you from the start? They have been doing conventions every year since 2013. It has been a form of keeping backers apprised of what they are doing in even more depth than the hundreds of posts and youtube videos they release almost every week. The people that attend the conventions also get to speak with devs and try out modes and builds earlier than the evocati at times. People who attended also provided additional mocap for emotes and get to represent their organizations to other backers. Not sure how this is a bad thing especially considering they do not spend pledged money on these conventions.
 
Aztechnology

Aztechnology

Community Resettler
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
14,147
iJul@1502 said:
a neutral news about SC got less that 20 reply?? usually there had 3 or 4 page at this time..
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It's because it's neutral news. And all the replies really seem to be from regulars. It's also not that in depth of an investigative piece, so I guess that doesn't help a lot either. Anyone else know of a relatively unbiased video/coverage someone has done covering SC with maybe a bit more depth? I know Dictator 's Digital Foundry video covered it a bit. But it's of a more technical nature. Still a great video.
 
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