This post hits like a bucket of ice cold water.Yeah, this is what should be alarming for people. SQ42 is supposed to launch any day now, Q3 2020 it is. Even if they push it back to Q4 or Q1 2021, by now that part of the game should be essentially feature-complete, so what they should be working on is correcting bugs, optimizing the engine, finalizing assets, maybe putting down the groundwork for post-launch support and the continuation of the story. Star Citizen is a whole other can of worms, but right now SQ42 should be at a point where laying down a public-compatible roadmap that explains the last touches they're adding to deliver the game in the very near future is an activity that should not take long.
And yet, they can't provide a roadmap in a timely fashion. They can't because there is too much stuff left to do. When it arrives, they'll no doubt point out the fact that some of the features will be iterated upon, that some of the additions they're making will make a certain update scheduled for 2021/2022 quicker and smoother. This is their comunication method. People want to know when they finally get to fly the ship they bought or when they can finally play the SQ42 story, instead what they get is this monster roadmap of stuff they worked on, canned, implemented, iterated.
All such a level of detail does is confuse people, bury the lead under a massive load of text and technical details that are completely irrelevant. If you as a player have not had the chance to experience the 2.5 version of one of their game system, what exactly does it tell you that they reverted it to 2.4 (which you also didn't play), while they moved features (you have not seen) onto the 3.0 iteration which will be worked on next year? It's "fried air" (to paraphrase an Italian figure of speech), because it's a wall of text that explains why they didn't deliver something you haven't even seen in its previous version. It could even be made up at that point.
If this were to be a well-managed project, after 8 years the features the game should launch with should not only be decided but be functionally ready, bar some bug-busting and other optimizations. Instead, this roadmap will likely contain lengthy explanations about how the shooting module is being reworked, how the walking animation is being iterated, how the crew AI is receiving fantastic new additions and so on. There's even gonna be percentages, hard dates, version numbers. You'll get to see they are working, that they're making legitimate progress towards something. But that something isn't release. That something is the next time the community makes an uproar about where the fuck is the game they backed almost a decade ago. By then, they'll find themselves under pressure to, once again, show meaningful progress with numbers, dates, version numbers, maybe even a fancy scripted gameplay video that will convince some that it's coming together.
But it's 2020. They missed over half a decade worth of deadlines, dates, promises. They are still selling content that will be created at a future date. They have still not cleared out of their roadmaps a lot of things that were already there several years ago. The community can still not play what they should have many quarters ago. At that point, what does it matter knowing that ship #324's interior are now complete? That the shooting module is near playable? That they finished filming all the scenes with Gillian Anderson? What does it all matter when you are still not getting closer to playing that stuff yourself?
Early access games exist. Various games that launched with a lot of missing features, with not enough depth or broken gameplay elements turned into fantastic games in the years (No Man's Sky, Sea of Thieves, Rainbow Six: Siege to mention a few). Even several feature-complete and function games got years' worth of great support (Fortnite, Minecraft, Elite Dangerous), turning them into something far greater. There's many ways to make a game bigger, bolder and more ambitious as time goes by. What accomunates all these games however is that, at one point, they launched. Maybe they got low ratings at first, maybe there was some naysaying, but when the project fulfilled its ambitions and potentials, people were on board.
Squadron 42 could absolutely launch like that, but it won't anytime soon. It won't anytime soon because they aren't finalizing anything, they're merely iterating, improving, reworking. They are not working with actual deadlines in mind. If they were, they'd be forced to make decision about what to cut, what to delay, and what to focus on making playable and functional now. But they aren't, because there's no rush. The money is coming in anyway, and this year they are breaking all records. The hype is higher than ever, so they are not in a rush to change their workflow.
Soon enough they'll officialize SQ42 not making Q3. They'll give a lengthy explanation as to why, about how they delayed the game but the final stretch will actually be quicker and more effective than ever. And threads like these will be made in 3, 6, 12 months as well because SQ42 isn't going to release for the foreseeable future. We'll share the same memes, the same outrage, the same considerations, but unless an investor comes in and turns the place around its head or a lawsuit fucks them up, nothing is going to change. Because the model they chose, the comunication they went for, the roadmap systems they built means they can always change plans, move back, iterate, improve, scrap. It's transparent, so it's fine.
Thank you for taking the time - it was difficult to accurately express in words just how crazy this whole thing is.
I often think SC looks incredible, and wish Elite could have just a handful of the sandbox features it has.
But then after watching gameplay for more than 5 minutes it becomes apparent how difficult these things are to make, and how easily they break; how quickly that illusion is spoiled. I'm sure there are a lot of talented people who've been building out that world for years... I wonder at what level the reality of their situation is felt, and how motivated they are to "complete" it with the current model.
