Meanwhile,
over there
Mucka
You bring up a lot of interesting points in your post above.
Interesting...but, as with all the other supporters before you who made the dame arguments, wrong.
Shall I try to cover them one by one?
Well...OK then. But only some.
You say people here have "zero technical knowledge or programming background."
That is wrong. Many of the people here are programmers, coders, developers, network engineers or the like.
It isn't we who are embarrassing ourselves. Its people like you who come into the debate and presume to tell us we don't have a clue about how to do our jobs who are embarrassing yourselves.
Do you guys have a script on what to say and which points to raise?
You claim you tried to explain "how the PG tech was superior to ED"...
The trouble is that wouldn't be difficult. Procedural generation is relatively easy. The difficulty is often in hiding the patterns and providing a sufficient degree of variation.
The problem with your argument that SC PG is better than that of EDs is that so far there is very little proof of that.
That cityscape demo was impressive. Right up until you realised there was 1...a great deal of repetition in assets and 2...it was crafted using a different engine and wasn't representative of what is or would be in game. The moons of 3.0 have the same issues....they look pretty, but there is a LOT of repetition in the assets, the pattern generator needs improving as you can visually see the layout used and the moons themselves are heavily handcrafted.
It is difficult to argue PG is better in SC when it isn't really used to do anything except create a couple of spheres.
The S42 demo? Is it a failure?
Well...you fell for it so obviously not. It did its job.
I saw six years of work boiled down to an interactive movie with poor combat capabilities, and an urgent need to have the graphics updated. I saw performance problems, poor sound design and mediocre gameplay.
The music was good and...up close...the planets looked good.
As for being a preAlpha...finally. How long have you guys been referring to this as an Alpha build?
But again you get things wrong. I don't think the demo was a failure because it was polished...and contrary to your assertion, CIG put a lot of effort polishing that demo...but because it demonstrated very poor game design. Technical issues can be fixed...sound and graphics can be changed. Game design and mechanics are in some ways difficult to change.
I will agree that the amazing tech Chris Roberts promised is being ignored. I look forward to the day he actually adds some to the game.
You guys backed him do he could add this tech. The least he could do is add something.
And yes...it is difficult to appreciate the ground breaking nature of being able to walk around a capital ship or fly fighters. It was impressive in SWG and it still looked good when CODIW did it.
But I think you are overly impressed by the lack of a loading screen. Streaming data into memory has been around since the days of the Spectrum and C64.
Technically....SC will be loading in map data in the same way games like ED and WOW does. The only question will be how well it will hide that loading process in a real world environment...thousands of players, hundreds of servers with dozens of instances.
You think CIG will be able to exert as tight a control on the process as they do now when the game is released and "live"?
ED went the way it did because FDev did not want to be saddled with the huge costs a client-server setup would entail. Running Star Citizen is not going to be cheap. A server-client model does offer a number of advantages....but its also costlier.
Would this be a good time to point out that EDs instances are about the same size as those of SCs and cheaper to run? No?
Does ED have the same tech as Star Citizen?
Nope. FD have a working engine and a finished game. CIG have neither.
Does Star Citizen have a greater scope than ED?
Curently? No. EDs is bigger.
What about later? When SC goes live? What about then?
Nope...the scope of both games will be about the same. Assuming CIG gets its stuff running.
You also seem to be operatibg under the delusion that CIG is developing new tech. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to what this may be?
As it is....I can say the game has failed. CIGs own developers are saying they reached the limits of what their engine can do and the game is nowhere near ready for release.
CIG either need to switch engines to one that is capable or cut down on the fidelity, content and feature list.
Like you I am confident that performance will increase.
Until CIG adds something new and breaks the fixes. The engine cannot handle the game...and that isn't a problem you can fix by waving a magic wand.
As it is....noone here really wants Star Citizen to fail. Why should we?
We just are not blinded by the "Cult of Roberts" into believing everything he says. I don't believe everything EA or Activision say...why should I treat CIG any different?
More to the point...we come back to your opening point and the supposition that we know nothing about development.
Sadly...many of us DO understand. Which is why we can see the writing on the wall.
This game appears to be in serious trouble. CIGs own devs are stating the engine has reached the limits of its capabilities. Judging by the videos and performance issues and all the little and not so little glitches and CIGs inability to fix these problems....I'd agree. CIGs is fixing one problem by causing three more. They've been trying for more than a year to fix performance issues and the problem isn't getting better. Its getting worse with every patch.
The game is sinking. Most here can see that. The only question is how long will CIGs work keep the game afloat.
They are currently using band aids to mend a gusher. Something will have to give soon.
Before you respond, I'd advise you to learn something about the development process yourself and then turn a critical eye to CIG. Most of the problems affecting SC are the result of decisions made by CIG and their incompetence