Star Citizen – General Discussions
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You’re going to absolutely love this new post by the Goon effort poster.
E3 SPECULATIONS:
CHRIS ROBERTS TAKES THE STAGE, PERHAPS WITH AN OLD FRIEND:
Cloud Imperium Games is a late addition to the speaker roster at The PC Gaming Show. Chris Roberts will presumably take the stage, though one suspects only long enough to wave hands, make a word salad the include “fidelity”, “immersion”, “sort of”, and “kind of”, and to drop some most fidelitous trailer porn on a crowdful of gamer nerds.
I would not be entirely surprised if Mark Hamill takes the stage with him, not as Actor doing contractually-bound press junket but as an old friend showing up to boost the cred of the game as he did at The Game Awards last year. I say this with no cynicism whatsoever — Hamill is a great guy and true friend to Roberts and if asked and not otherwise obligated, I believe he’d happily do it. If so, nerd instincts and nostalgia overload will bring the house down with applause and joyful hollering— and you finally might see the RSI funding tracker show a spark of life.
PLEASE NOTE: This is WILD speculation on my part — and I offer it only because Hamill is not only the single greatest PR asset Cloud Imperium has but also a true gentleman and friend. His enthusiasm for the project is worth more than any trailer. He is an Elder Statesman of Space Fantasy and he brings with him enormous reserves of trust and good will. Chris needs that more than anything else right now, because too many people have seen too many trailers and gameplay reveals that later evaporated without comment. Chris needs a new tool to bolster confidence in the face of eroding credibility, and Mark Hamill’s enthusiasm for the project is the best tool he could hope for.
All that being said, CIG will still be a sideshow at E3.
BIOWARE STRIKES BACK
Bioware is believed to be finally pulling back the curtain for Mass Effect: Andromeda. The conventional wisdom has it figured as Mass Effect 4 but it is not an incremental improvement over ME:3– it is a reinvention of the franchise. The scale of the game is staggering, with planetary exploration back in a huge way. (Truly huge.)
Those interested in seeing what Bioware has been cooking up over the same time period that Chris Roberts has spent running endless spaceship sales, redesigning all assets a dozen times, not getting female player characters into the game, building out one incomplete star system, putting out hundreds of videos, and shooting “Wing Commander 5: Apocalypse Now” should visit this page.
After you read it, I think you will be able to appreciate the full competitive threat that Mass Effect: Andromeda represents to both Star Citizen and Squadron 42.
WHAT GOOD IS MONEY WHEN YOU’VE RUN OUT OF TIME?
Chris has not run out of money– but he has nearly run out of time. Backers who have thusfar resisted this conclusion, who chuckled nervously about Cod: Infinite Warfare but ultimately shrugged it off, are going to have a much harder time doing the same with Mass Effect: Andromeda. It’s the Space Opera / Exploration / Shooter / Single and Multiplayer Movie/Gameplay experience you’ve been hoping for– and it stars YOU as the hero.
The one / two punch of Infinite Warfare and Andromeda are not the last blows Chris will have to weather before release. In fact, No Man’s Sky releases next month, Elite keeps improving steadily, several smaller but possibly competitive release are hitting throughout the year, and of course the Starfield threat is looming out there, too. Chris has promised to be as good or better than anything out there. Has claimed Star Citizen is so far ahead only Rockstar could hope to compete– maybe. Yet most competitors have said nothing– they’ll let their games speak for themselves. Chris will be forced to do the same, with a game that says surprisingly little. (If you disagree, pop over to Twitch and see for yourself.)
OLD NARRATIVES HAVE BECOME STRUCTURALLY UNSOUND
None of the old defenses — “it’s pre-alpha!“, “you know nothing about game development!“, “Derek Shart is a terrible developer!” — have the power to hold back the hands of superior competitors with finely honed visions, boundaries they want to push, stories they long to tell, experiences they’re dying to deliver, franchises they’re hoping to establish or redeem, and marketing muscle to push it all out when they’re finished.
They will prove they could do more with less, and faster, and will reap the spoils (i.e. profits) of their superior focus, discipline and creative vision. The false narrative of Publisher constraints on creative visions will be laid bare for all to scoff at– because the unconstrained vision and budget of one hubristic indie developer has managed with such enormous fanfare to produce so very little worthy of praise.
Fidelity and immersion are in the eyes of the beholder, yet there is no better way – short of VR headsets – to immerse players into a game than by creating a game so wondrous and compelling that they can not bear to leave it. Headset bobs are no substitute for compelling game mechanics. Five stages of player acceleration are no replacement for thrilling opportunities to explore wondrous worlds. Fixed entry and exit animations can’t compensate for derivative lore with no compelling objectives.
I think E3 will be a very consequential event this year– one that sees the old “Star Citizen will be the best damn space sim ever” narrative starting to crumble in the eyes of John S. Citizen. How can it not? There is too much territorial overlap to pretend these games aren’t competing for the same customers, the same mindshare, the same critics, the same dollars.
With the old narratives of assumed supremacy crumbling, new ones will have to be fashioned to replace them. The old ones will be demolished by the competition — and the new ones will have to explain how that could possibly happen to the player who had the earliest head start, the most money, the least constraints…
How, indeed.
The downside of embracing the Auteur theory of game design is that in the end, the blame must be owned by the visionary with unilateral control. That time is coming, and if CIG isn’t yet preparing for that eventuality, they probably should be…
STAR CITIZEN: A FIDELITOUS DOLLHOUSE FOR GROWN MEN TO KEEP THEIR OVERDESIGNED SPACESHIPS IN
As for Star Citizen, it is a universe being built to support 4 years of increasingly absurd spaceship sales. In time, it might deliver truly epic majesty at the micro level. All the wonderous detailing that went into those costly ships through all those endless redesigns — truly, has any space game ever labored so mightily over its ship assets? (No– nor will they… Because games aren’t the sum of their fidelitous assets. But hey, some of the ship designers are going to walk away from this with some gorgeous portfolios and the world’s most amazing demo reels.)
The 2.4 update lays the Dollhouse For Men Gameplan bare. Shops, shops everywhere! You can layer your clothing on your white male spacedoll and have a dress-up adventure with friends! Future missions might even be assigned if you’re wearing the right combination of clothing as you strike up a conversation with a fashion-conscious NPC. Hope you know how to accessorize!
These are the unironic gameplay ambitions of CIG for Star Citizen. They said as much on the recent “10 for the Developers”. This is the $114M first person universe they have spent four years cooking up while selling amazingly fidelitous spaceships. If you, like Erris at INN, have been chomping at the bit to mix and match your spaceman clothing and layer your outfits for maximum dandiness, your greatest adventure lies ahead, and dumbwards… Space farming adventures in your own fidelitous Biodome attachments can be yours with the purchase of a MISC-Endeavor. And for those who like drink mixing mini-games, the Starliner just might be the ship your doll has been dreaming of… (Note: not all promised features will be available at launch. Some may be shelved as whims and finances dictate…)
But where is the fun? If it’s in there, why isn’t anyone playing it? Why are the breakthroughs always just around the corner? Why is there one system to venture about when we await 100? Why are more than half the ships still unflyable? Why did the flyable ones need so many revision passes to be released? Why do ships still fly like balsa wood toys? Why is the flight model so woefully inadequate? Why is the tutorial still broken after all these months? Why do the free fly events not produce big sales jumps? Why do we still not have female models or customizable player characters yet?
Oh wait– I know. It’s pre-alpha, right? With hopes to get to Minimum Viable Product maybe sometime next year? Yeah, that’s what I thought… Best of luck with that, Chris. I hope you don’t mind if people stop believing before then. Hope you don’t mind if they start seeing other games. Hope you don’t mind if the Gaming Press stops being polite, too. They’ll have some questions, too– and they can’t be “moved to concern” to die.
THE SILVER LINING TO A DARK CLOUD IMPERIUM…
If you love Space Games — RPGs, space sims, strategy games, exploration games, VR experiences — this year and the next will see an embarrassment of riches.
For those who seek to explore new alien worlds, to treat with friendly aliens and fight with hostiles, to uncover mysterious ruins, build up colonies, gather resources, customize weapons, partner with colorful and intelligent companions, and and be the hero of a riproaring space ADVENTURE? Don’t worry– Bioware has got your back. 100+ hours of highly replayable gaming experiences can be yours next March for $60. (And, though the press remains largely clueless, Bethesda will have their own space adventure in not too distant future. “Surprise!”)
If you’re jonesing for space adventures before then, Hello Games would like a word. And of course, Frontier is always there with a rock solid spaceflight and galaxy simulator that’s slowly but surely getting more and more fun to play.
It’s never been a better time to be a Space Game fan, and you can thank Chris Roberts for helping shine a lot of light upon an under-served niche. There was a time when most assumed he’d be leading the way in this second great age — he had the early mover advantage, he had the greatest war chest — but the head start was squandered, the war chest misspent. The backers will eventually see what he’s made with all this time and money, but only the willfully blind could be encouraged by the state of Star Citizen. The Epic Space Adventures Chris has been boastfully promising for years is still coming, but his quiet competitors will be the ones delivering it.
I find it hilarious Christ Roberts(as much shit as he talked) did the dirty work for publishers shining the light on the Space based game gold mine and now they are beating him to the punch for delivering a viable product.
That cover looks too Golden Compass for me.
Star Citizen is a space game … sometimes being obvious with your imagery is best.
It’s parody
The situation is even worse for CIG when you read about all the new space games coming out and realize that the actual SC game is getting very little attention right now by the developers. Since all hands are focused on getting an actual money making product out there, the developers are working on SQ42 and adding cash shop items to SC. Until SQ42 releases, SC will get very little actual new content so it wont be until sometime in 2017 that development might actually shift back to SC. My guess is the shell of a game is not released until sometime near the end of 2019 and then it will not have even 50% of the content promised. By that time SC will be the biggest joke in the gaming industry as so many other quality space-based games will have released by then.
I still have a hard time understanding how the fan’s of SC can not see the focus on revenue generating products (cash shop and SQ42) and how each month Chris brings up some new feature that we all know by now will not make it into the game EVER. Heists and Vaulting wont be in the game and never will be but these fans just bend over and act like Chris is going to give them all these things if they just keep sending more money. It is so similar to Scientology that it honestly scares me.
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