Star Citizen – Interstellar Pirates

[Anonymous]

@dsmart

“Anyway, I understand your argument and I’ve addressed it time and time again. It’s really not that important to compare 3yrs vs 4yrs. And most of the people making that argument are not game developers. Gamers are in no position to determine what stage a game should be in, after 3 or 4 years. Only devs get to make that call. And even so, even the best of us experienced devs, get it wrong. All the time.”

I am certainly in no position to say what stage in development a game should be at 3 years in. And I would think that you are right in saying even an experienced game dev can get this wrong. After all, different games are probably developed differently, and I would guess that even for very similar games, a different production team might make them differently. So I think what you said here makes perfect sense, and I will go with that by not claiming to know what stage of development a game should be in at a certain point, but also to not take a more qualified person’s word as the gospel truth.

“The fact is that 3 or 4 years in, they do not have any form of a “game” to show. That’s the problem. And if you’re at that stage this far in, wherein you are still calling it pre-Alpha, when all you have is a glorified tech demo, that’s why I for one have always said that this game is another 2 to 3 years out.”

I think that the ‘2.0 alpha’ that was demonstrated is something that I would call some form of a game, but I’ll agree that what is currently playable (the ‘modules’) is more like a glorified tech demo. Once that 2.0 alpha is released and playable, would that be something you consider to be evidence of progress? If what they release is like what they showed, then I would feel like it is good news for the people who have been waiting for the game to come out, something real to play. A ‘game’ where some emergent gameplay can occur, where you can be surprised by the actions of other players, or where you can make your own fun. Interaction between players would be more than simple combat and nothing else. It may be the case that the game should have been at this stage a year or more ago, but if this 2.0 alpha is released within a few months like they seem to be implying then doesn’t that mean that the evidence points towards the game eventually being released, but delayed?

Let’s be fair here, you have not always said the game is another 2 to 3 years out. You have said many times that you do not think that game can be made as pitched. That either they will ship something with most of the promised features missing that has little in common with CR’s pipe dream, a-la freelancer, or that the game would simply fail, leaving all of the backers with nothing more than jpeg ships to console themselves with. There is little I respect more in a person than a willingness to change one’s own opinion in the face of changing evidence. Is that what you would say you are doing, or am I misinterpreting you?

[Anonymous]

wrong spot

[Anonymous]

@Dsmart

@mikoraid As I’ve said time and time again, I do NOT want to see the game fail. That doesn’t mean that I can’t call them out on what they are doing, how they are wasting backer money, lying to backers continuously etc.

Thank you both for your responses. I’m just trying to gather all the knowledge I can on this subject, it’s all very interesting. I’m soo curious on the reasons for the DS “supporters” for lack of a better term want to take down something we all supposedly want.

There is still nothing proving that this project will not be seen through. You know that an AAA game takes years to build. Yes, CIG has expanded the scope of this game way past what was originally planned but the backers, again are overwhelmingly in for the long haul. Besides the people inside, nobody knows where the progress has reached. I’m sure many aspects could have and still can be done more efficiently as with any game production. The inner workings of SC are more exposed than and any other games of this size. Firings, hiring, notable programmers being cut, personal issues (large and small), trying to add more and more to a game… The list can go on, this is all what happens behind the scenes to every single game, much more so the large developers. Hell, look at Batman ark-whatever that is completely cancelled on the PC, things can happen. Why is it your place to “uncover” anything, is still the question?

@MDrake SC

It’s ironic how Derek never asked for a $250 refund, yet got one, because of his blog. I ask for my $2,500 through concierge and get ignored past the second confirmation.

Egos are not being put aside to create the greatest game ever. Chris insists on having track balls on the Saitek HOTAS. Track balls are dirt terrible for aiming, and are even worse to use on a joystick as you move it around. Chris and Ben indirectly insult everyone that do not enjoy the “interactive mode” for mouse flying, and dump all outbursts and constructive criticism in the Katamari Damashii Controller vs Controller.

Derek has paid others to search through CA public records to determine what Chris and Sandi have done. Their change of residence and the inability to locate Sandi’s UCLA degrees are suspicious.

Chris has a history of epic failures. The Wing Commander film… Freelancer was bailed out by Microsoft, at the cost of Chris’ Digital Anvil company. His film studio Ascendant Pictures gets sued by Kevin Costner for breaking contract and $8 million. The film company is sold to Bigfoot…
1. http://www.ascendantpictures.com/team.html
2. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/people/2005-11-30-costner-lawsuit_x.htm
3. http://www.dailynews.com/article/ZZ/20080305/NEWS/803059903
4. http://www.bigfoot.com/up-press-releases-172.php

Chris Roberts is repeating his failures and cannot be trusted. He knows how to put up a friendly face in public and with fans, but once he goes back to the office… we eventually get to read his amazing public rants that take 8 hours to write. Blame it all on Derek Smart cuz he da internet warlord.

Ego, arrogance, lies. It’s all catching up. This time, there ain’t no publisher to bail out the game.

The mouse-aim fiasco which basically flies for the mouse users is a touchy subject for me. There’s no aircraft or spacecraft that can be flown effectively with a mouse, the g-forces alone make it unfeasible. And, yes, the trackball b.s. on a stick is utter crap. There is a reason nothing like that is used in real aircraft. I’m an ex-USAF avionics tech (amongst other things) and hardcore flight-simmer to the bone. HOTAS (joystick) or don’t play, that’s my opinion. At the very least, the mouse should be for the directional input of the ship and nothing more, just like the joysticks functions.

Drake with you, the same question stands, why the push to expose anything if the backers that don’t want refunds, don’t care.

Derek has paid others to search through CA public records to determine what Chris and Sandi have done. Their change of residence and the inability to locate Sandi’s UCLA degrees are suspicious.

…Wow, why do you care?? This is mindboggling to me, put that money to finding Obama’s school records, or the Clinton’s to see what they have done. That’s how ridiculous it sounds to me. By the way, I am a black man not unlike your shade, Mr. Smart, (for reference, lol).

It sounds like everyone needs to hug it out and move on to working on solutions. Seriously, I’m still taking in everyone’s view points and reasoning.

[MDrake SC]

@ Michael Mikoriad

For me, the push to expose anything, even if other backers don’t care or want refunds, is based on accountability. Luckily for me, my other crowdfunded projects succeeded. However, there are other projects that failed from mismanagement or embezzled funds. It’s one thing for Chris to be a pathetic manager, and repeating his mistakes. It is another if he is using money intended for SC, then spends it for other stuff that only Derek knows thanks to his insider sources. Several major hints have been dropped from Escapist too. The way Escapist responded to Ortwin is a clear sign.

If Chris and Sandi lie about minor details… It wouldn’t be a surprise that they lie about larger details too. It’s true that their residence change and degrees are extremely minor. It’s also true that they have never publicly disclosed any finances, never held to any dates, and thus never will be held accountable. At the minimum, Chris can continue mismanaging money, and no one can stop him because he is the CEO. That is why other high level employees from reputable companies left SC, which is a universal warning sign.

[Daniel G]

@meat

Pls don’t compare SC to Fallout 4, Elder Scrolls Online or any other Publisher funded game.
They invest the money, develop it on their own and can take the time to develop it, even if it takes them 7 years.

To be honest I’m sick of hearing this argument over and over again!

This isn’t the same for SC, they had a campaign on Kickstarter, then on their website. They asked for consumer money to fund their development!!!
They had stretch goals that stated what and when they would deliver.
They had the TOS 1.1 that stated they would have a maximum delay of 1 year of the original delivery date Nov. 2014.
A traditional publisher isn’t bound to that, period.

And if you don’t keep your promises and then wonder why people want their money back then I really don’t know what’s really wrong with people.
Especially people that backed the original Kickstarter campaign feel totally cheated. They backed what was written there, period.
If the so called “overwhelming majority” on RSI’s own website then votes for a feature creep that’s not the concern of the original backers, they agreed to pre-buy the game on the terms that were listed on Kickstarter.

If you give an approximate release date with a 12-18 months eventual delay in a crowdfunded project you better stick to it.

And so far they haven’t sticked to any release date they’ve given! That’s a fact and so far have shown nothing apart from a few Tech Demos.
Nobody here wants the game to fail but they’re doing everything they can themselves to make it fail.

[Anthony Garner]

Ok
So I know some of the principles here and certainly in my professional life have worked with them in some form or another. I can only add to the discussion what I actually know as real.
These guys are NOT crooks and this is NOT a scam; allow me to elaborate:

Chris and Eric when they started the ball rolling with this, genuinely wanted to make a follow up to WC , in fact it’s no secret that Chris has being trying to do this for years. After the initial KS funding went insane (Thanks mainly to Wingman in my opinion) the goal posts moved and the scope changed. This is typical Chris, if he had stuck to the original pitch the game would be out now and probably doing really well considering the talent he had working on it.But we are talking about something unprecedented here , 94 million dollars !!! and he is being treated like a genuine Cult leader. If a load of fan boys gave me a small countries deficit and treated me like David Koresh with no questions asked Im pretty sure I would lose touch with reality as well.
There is no scam here or crookedness I know this, I know these guys. I too worked at Gizmondo so you may as well accuse me of working for the Swedish mafia. That whole thing was a bail out to save nearly 300 jobs and every man jack of them was hoodwinked by the sheer amount of cash that Tiger telematics had. I was one of the last out of the door with the people you are ‘insinuating ‘ are crooks.(yes I know you haven’t stated it) and there were only really 4 genuine crooks involved and Simon Elms was definitely not one of them. I admit that it looks very bad when seen in pure black and white but it really wasn’t like that .
I am a game dev and have been for as long as you Derek, in my opinion this project is in a bad state and I cannot see how they will pull off what they have promised.Ignore mad fanboy cultists who have overspent and know fck all about actually making a game,I agree with a lot of what you have stated from a tech POV etc. The additional info about the cash being used for filming personal projects for Sandi and 20 k coffee machines I can well believe BUT as I originally stated we are talking about something unprecedented . Chris will just be seeing it as a stack of cash to make his dream game and so what if some comes off the top to fund an extravagant lifestyle. This is where they have gone wrong because this is not private or publisher money it is public donations. He has failed to factor in accountability and should this fail then that will be the underlying reason.
I know that there are over 200 people working their asses off across the world and while this is a tragedy of epic Greek proportions in the making for the whole game industry, we have to remember that these guys have families and lives.
Ultimately the blame will fall with Chris, but NOT because he is a crook or is trying to create a ponzi scheme etc but became he genuinely had a dream and massively over reached with little understanding of what he was promising after a huge amount of time out of the industry. 12 years may as well be 100 years with the way tech and gaming has jumped. CIG is obviously in trouble but they certainly will not be making escape plans to a private south seas island volcano carved into an effigy of Chris’s head !! they will be literally working round the clock to get something , anything out there for the backers.

[Hyco Cam]

Meat, you are leaving out one key part of Star Citizen’s timeline. The Why and the Who. Why are folks expecting a game? Sure you say that games take a long time to develop. But WHY are people expecting something in 2015 and WHO told them what to expect? We have been hearing from the CEO of the company–Chris Roberts himself that we would have Squadron 42 in 2014, and then told it would be 2015, and the latest date is 2016. These aren’t the fans saying, “The game will be here in 2015”–it is the CEO of the company.

That more than anything is what has put me off the project. The folks in the company continue to give optimistic dates while the backers back them up–with “I don’t expect anything until 2017”. Nobody else seems to think it is a little off that random internet folks understand how long Star Citizen will take to create better than the man leading the project. Which leads me to the conclusion that either Chris Roberts is clueless about game development or he is intentionally giving optimistic dates to encourage people to back the game.

[Hyco Cam]

When Enron collapsed, or the Madoff ponzi scheme exposed, or the mortgage industry tanked–who caused that? Was it the journalists that initially reported on the looming troubles? Or was it the fault of those managing the businesses? Would the mortgage industry been just fine if they kept handing out loans to unqualified folks and bundling the loans as long as no one said anything? If star Citizen nevers sees the light of day–blaming some guy’s blog is a bit of a stretch. After all, all Derek has every done is claim stuff like “Star Marine delayed indefinitely”. Then in October, we find out–yeah Star Marine is no longer a deliverable. So Derek did that? Or maybe upper level management at CIG just wanted to make Derek right?

[Author]

Posts