Star Citizen Media Musings

[Bubba]

If the conclusion is 5 out of 6 crashes and "you're not having any fun at all", maybe I missed the sarcasm in the "shillizen" label.

[N0mad]

Chaptery two from Binky - Sunk Cost Galaxy - has gone online a few minutes ago.

I'm loving it so far, I hope the zealots are paying attention.

[nightfire]

On the surface, you'd think this video was about DayZ.

But if you substitute "Star Citizen" each time "DayZ" is mentioned in the commentary, you actually get to hear an incredibly accurate analysis of our favorite non-game.

[Bubba]

Okay, fair disclosure: I've never met Chris Roberts, or (that I know of) anyone involved with SC. I've also never met Dean Hall, nor had any personal or business dealings with him.

Now, that DayZ bit: first off, as a mod, DayZ offered something playable and an experience found nowhere else. That's not true of SC, at least at the moment.  People bought ArmA2 to play DayZ, and they did.
Second, the "shortcomings" have been mentioned before: ArmA (and OFP before it) has a huge map; without doubt more complex and populated than any "moon" SC has currently on offer. I personally like the pacing of longer times between highly lethal engagements. Sure, I also enjoy your face-shooter too, but they're very different things. It's like the violence of The Good the Bad and the Ugly vs. Black Hawk Down. Or hell, if you want a ton of death, take the Wild Bunch: in games where killing is the only meaningful action one person can do to another, the visceral impact of that action can vary depending on whether you spend 1 minute or 1 hour preparing for it.

Now, what about Dean Hall and BIS? My guess (and again, note my disclaimer above) is that he left when he figured out that there were a couple people ahead of him in line to get rich off of DayZ. But that doesn't mean that Marek and Ondrej == Chris and Erin. I mean, a modder for Bohemia Interactive went on an extended vacation to climb Mt. Everest, the proper way, from Nepal. I'll pause while you figure out how much that cost, and you can join me in imagining that BIS recognized what DayZ did for the company, gave DH a fat bonus, and tried to retain him. But at the end of the day, ArmA, the engine, and the development is run by other people, with other priorities, and as a middleware scripter, the only benefit he'd be getting by staying on would be that those issues in the past he used his scripting expertise to get around, now he'd maybe get someone who worked directly on the engine to fix, when the time was ripe.

So, yeah, BIS, in the business of doing military shooters and selling simulations to the military, now finds themselves with an unexpected hit on their hands, and the commitment to release it as a standalone, without a lead designer. They're not the kind of outfit that pays top koruna for some SH established game designer, nor could they compete in that market if they tried. But they've had a product that, while being disappointing in its current state (is it released now?), had a huge cultural impact, and has spawned a minor revolution in gaming.

That's completely different from the case of a washed-up FMV Cutscene director deciding he can produce and direct the BDSSE and taking over half a decade to deliver unplayable garbage.

Oh, and as an aside: I notice that the IMDB pages of the key players in this drama include every Star-Citizen-related Web Video produced. Do you think CIG is paying scale?

[dsmart]

Okay, fair disclosure: I've never met Chris Roberts, or (that I know of) anyone involved with SC. I've also never met Dean Hall, nor had any personal or business dealings with him.

Now, that DayZ bit: first off, as a mod, DayZ offered something playable and an experience found nowhere else. That's not true of SC, at least at the moment.  People bought ArmA2 to play DayZ, and they did.
Second, the "shortcomings" have been mentioned before: ArmA (and OFP before it) has a huge map; without doubt more complex and populated than any "moon" SC has currently on offer. I personally like the pacing of longer times between highly lethal engagements. Sure, I also enjoy your face-shooter too, but they're very different things. It's like the violence of The Good the Bad and the Ugly vs. Black Hawk Down. Or hell, if you want a ton of death, take the Wild Bunch: in games where killing is the only meaningful action one person can do to another, the visceral impact of that action can vary depending on whether you spend 1 minute or 1 hour preparing for it.

Now, what about Dean Hall and BIS? My guess (and again, note my disclaimer above) is that he left when he figured out that there were a couple people ahead of him in line to get rich off of DayZ. But that doesn't mean that Marek and Ondrej == Chris and Erin. I mean, a modder for Bohemia Interactive went on an extended vacation to climb Mt. Everest, the proper way, from Nepal. I'll pause while you figure out how much that cost, and you can join me in imagining that BIS recognized what DayZ did for the company, gave DH a fat bonus, and tried to retain him. But at the end of the day, ArmA, the engine, and the development is run by other people, with other priorities, and as a middleware scripter, the only benefit he'd be getting by staying on would be that those issues in the past he used his scripting expertise to get around, now he'd maybe get someone who worked directly on the engine to fix, when the time was ripe.

So, yeah, BIS, in the business of doing military shooters and selling simulations to the military, now finds themselves with an unexpected hit on their hands, and the commitment to release it as a standalone, without a lead designer. They're not the kind of outfit that pays top koruna for some SH established game designer, nor could they compete in that market if they tried. But they've had a product that, while being disappointing in its current state (is it released now?), had a huge cultural impact, and has spawned a minor revolution in gaming.

That's completely different from the case of a washed-up FMV Cutscene director deciding he can produce and direct the BDSSE and taking over half a decade to deliver unplayable garbage.

Oh, and as an aside: I notice that the IMDB pages of the key players in this drama include every Star-Citizen-related Web Video produced. Do you think CIG is paying scale?

This is a good post. I read the whole thing. 

[Backer42]

DayZ is a perfect example of unfinished work getting very popular and then stale, before getting actually finished and polished. Gamers moved on, because they were done with the mod, before it was beta.

This is the danger of staying to long in EA.

[DemonInvestor]

DayZ is a perfect example of unfinished work getting very popular and then stale, before getting actually finished and polished. Gamers moved on, because they were done with the mod, before it was beta.

This is the danger of staying to long in EA.

DayZ is a good example for a lot of things going wrong. But in the end like was said, Dean Hall seemingly was in a different positon. In one of his Streams for Stationeers he basically said he was only hired for 2 years - though there's propably going on a bit more in the background.

What i found always fascinating with those survival games is how they tackle the player behaviour. It's always interesting what's needed to get player cooperating, when there is no outside motivation. Games can fall because of bad incentives for certain behaviour and i personally doubt that someone who's baffled by crate droping ships, would be able to design a system that would in the end work out well.

[StanTheMan]

DayZ is a good example for a lot of things going wrong. But in the end like was said, Dean Hall seemingly was in a different positon. In one of his Streams for Stationeers he basically said he was only hired for 2 years - though there's propably going on a bit more in the background.

What i found always fascinating with those survival games is how they tackle the player behaviour. It's always interesting what's needed to get player cooperating, when there is no outside motivation. Games can fall because of bad incentives for certain behaviour and i personally doubt that someone who's baffled by crate droping ships, would be able to design a system that would in the end work out well.

Indeed and obviously what players expect changes over time.

Star Citizen as advertised and imagined by many Backers (aided and abetted by CIG) is going to involve a level of cooperation that would far exceed anything required in previous games and require the stars to align as gameplay is largely all made up by the players and somehow sufficiently policed in a terribly badly designed game by an inexperienced studio.

it is far easier (and a lot of fun) to play the bad guy in an MMO (nevermind actual griefing) than it is to sepnd weeks and years "cooperating" in some organisation of non-equals.

All at 12 frames per second...

[Backer42]

DayZ is a good example for a lot of things going wrong. But in the end like was said, Dean Hall seemingly was in a different positon. In one of his Streams for Stationeers he basically said he was only hired for 2 years - though there's propably going on a bit more in the background.

Well the point of my post wasn't discussing of what went wrong with DayZ.

Let's look at the failed attempt on an Star Citizen MMO. Ever since Blizzard hit their goldmine with WoW almost everyone in the industry tried to repeat that success. Including Chris Roberts. These people didn't realize that it isn't 2004 anymore. A time predating social media, where people who got bored by their latest purchase had to drive to their local video game store to pick up their next game.

Nowadays gamers see something on YouTube or Twitch: "That looks fun, let's try it out" and with another visit to a digital storefront they are gone. It doesn't matter what exactly went wrong in your "ten year plan" for your space MMO: Most people wont stick for another decade to just your product. And that's the reason why you don't leave something for years in "Early Access": Because once it peaked in popularity, finishing and polishing it is just a waste of time.

[dsmart]

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[DemonInvestor]

Well the point of my post wasn't discussing of what went wrong with DayZ.

Let's look at the failed attempt on an Star Citizen MMO. Ever since Blizzard hit their goldmine with WoW almost everyone in the industry tried to repeat that success. Including Chris Roberts. These people didn't realize that it isn't 2004 anymore. A time predating social media, where people who got bored by their latest purchase had to drive to their local video game store to pick up their next game.

Nowadays gamers see something on YouTube or Twitch: "That looks fun, let's try it out" and with another visit to a digital storefront they are gone. It doesn't matter what exactly went wrong in your "ten year plan" for your space MMO: Most people wont stick for another decade to just your product. And that's the reason why you don't leave something for years in "Early Access": Because once it peaked in popularity, finishing and polishing it is just a waste of time.

Well... i don't see early access as a special case in what you describe.
Early access has the same problem as every other game - stagnation. If a game stagnates it will die sooner. And as always keeping a game alive for years might need more and more effort until it's no longer worth said effort. Though 'EA' games have the problem of already being in 'expectation debt'.

If finishing a 'EA' game is worth it or not, depends upon how often one can sell something and not finish it, or how often you need to actually sell something to the masses.

[Spunky Munkee]

I think this project has continued to linger on the vine not because of new backers so much as the attempts by backers of keeping the hopes alive and their continued purchasing of every piece of crap Chris Roberts dangles under their noses.

How much crap will Roberts be able to see once the game is completed? Everything they needed has been purchased already.

[helimoth]

How much crap will Roberts be able to see once the game is completed? Everything they needed has been purchased already.

See this is the thing though; ignoring the fact that SC will never be released (at least not to the extent that it will ever resemble a game rather than a tech demo), Shitizens believe they have bought their 'fleet' and all this is going to last them for a while when they play the game - WRONG. If the game did by some miracle manage to launch in to the SC people are expecting then you can bet your bottom dollar that the ships that have currently been bought (even the ones that cost thousands of dollars) will quickly be revealed to be low-tier cheap in game ships with much better ships now available to buy for thousands of dollars. Given the amount of money cig knows is sloshing around in the wallets of whales, nobody should expect this game to be anything other than a huge pay-to-win spendfest if it does release (it won't)

[hurrdurr]

Well the point of my post wasn't discussing of what went wrong with DayZ.

Let's look at the failed attempt on an Star Citizen MMO. Ever since Blizzard hit their goldmine with WoW almost everyone in the industry tried to repeat that success. Including Chris Roberts. These people didn't realize that it isn't 2004 anymore. A time predating social media, where people who got bored by their latest purchase had to drive to their local video game store to pick up their next game.

Nowadays gamers see something on YouTube or Twitch: "That looks fun, let's try it out" and with another visit to a digital storefront they are gone. It doesn't matter what exactly went wrong in your "ten year plan" for your space MMO: Most people wont stick for another decade to just your product. And that's the reason why you don't leave something for years in "Early Access": Because once it peaked in popularity, finishing and polishing it is just a waste of time.

You make an excellent point. There's definitely been a massive paradigm shift in the past decade with these (primarily indie) early access games being released for wide public consumption. Inside of that phenomenon, you have bizarre situations unfolding like you described, and I'll use Starbound as an example.

Having been born out of the popularity of Terraria (i.e. a sort of 2D Minecraft) Starbound brought a lot of neat, new ideas to the table (alongside many of other category contenders such as Crea, Darkout, Edge of Space, etc.) I put nearly a thousand hours into the game myself during its early access years, as did many others. Sadly, by the time the game went gold for initial release, the game's modding community and popularity had basically flatlined.

So, it wouldn't surprise me, that if CIG is even able to survive long enough to release a product that is far too little and far too late, the hype train will derail quicker than the right end of a classical bell curve, and nobody will even care enough to be surprised.

[DemonInvestor]

@hurrdurr
Starbound is a proto SC in my books.
Best thing was when they started arguing about the meaning of "final release" and how the current alpha status game would actually be enough for a final release., while denying cancelling pre-orders.

@helimoth
Well he might just go the itemization way of making those ship hulls less important than the actual parts to put into those. And seeing how it's an MMO (or not, who knows..., he doesn't seem to), said gear could be in nice little crates, playing nicely along with his stowage module, you've got to pay space-hackers for to break open.