Star Citizen – Year Four

[dsmart]

Posted here for posterity, as year four (if you go with the 2012 start date) draws to a close with neither Star Citizen nor Squadron 42 being released.

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A lot is lost in the noise. But if you go back to my blogs and comments (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) about this, specifically where I said that their 64-Bit positioning was bullshit and will wreak all kinds of havoc (which it is still doing) in the end, you will find that is precisely what has happened.

I also stated – clearly – that Gamescom/CitizenCon 2015 were all smoke and mirrors, that neither Star Citizen nor SQ42 would see the light of day in 2016 etc. There is a long list of my predictions sitting squarely in my blogs. That’s why I write them so that the history isn’t lost in the noise.

It is now Sept 2016, and there is NOTHING that has happened since Gamescom/CitizenCon 2015 that even remotely looks like a fucking “game”. It is still a glorified CryEngine mod masquerading as a tech demo. And not even a vertical slice at that.

Sure they’re trying to make a game. But that’s not the point. It was never – ever – the point. The point was that they are wasting money trying to make a game they simply CANNOT make; and which I stated back in July 2015, couldn’t be made, once it was over-scoped.

All they are doing is finding ways to make money (e.g. the stunt they just pulled at Gamescom 2016 with a staged/scripted demo, and which sources are claiming will never make it into the game) in order to prolong the inevitable disaster that is now fermenting. That’s the logic behind the ship and concept sales, as well as the implementation of an in-game clothing (!) store, even as they don’t have a mission quest, mining, trading or any vital GAMEPLAY elements promised. Currently, what passes for missions, is the same ganky flipping a switch bullshit, coupled with AI generated pirate ship fodder. And that’s been in there since Q4/2015. Meantime, they’re now showing grabby hands cargo manipulation (which btw, they showcased back in 2014!) whereby a designer really thinks that players are going to be manually hauling fucking boxes in the name of realism – because that’s somehow fun.

With year five (or four, if you give them a 1yr pass to get their shit in gear) coming to a close, every aspect of the tech demo, is flat-out broken. All of it. And the saddest thing? There is NOTHING innovative or ground-breaking about ANY of it. The novelty of waking up in a wank pod, going to a ship, running to a platform, hoping your ship is there, then getting in – all in fps mode – is over and done with. Heck, even COD:IW is doing that now. And besides the wank pod part, I’ve been doing it in LOD since 2011 – almost one year into development.

Go ahead and ask anyone (Shitizen or not) to point out ONE single innovative thing about Star Citizen, and which has somehow justified $120 million of crowd-funding.

If the schedule seems haphazard, it’s because it is; as they are – in between the blatant cash grab – basically just going through a check-list in order to probably justify an MVP as a vertical slice in order to avoid liability in the long term. In software, there is zero liability if you deliver a product that doesn’t function as expected. As long as you deliver. That’s why companies like Sony, WB et al get hit in the media (and on Steam), and rarely does legal action comes out of it. Look at what’s happening to NMS, then compare to the Batman game, Aliens Colonial Marines etc. It’s a cycle; and Star Citizen is going to end up right there with them – but it will be worse since this was crowd-funded. Unfortunately for them, some of the promises (e.g. the size of the world) made for Star Citizen aren’t just going to get waved off and implemented from a check list.

I have repeatedly said that I have my own selfish reasons for NOT wanting to see them fail. But denial is not a river in Egypt; and so hostilities (they started it!) aside, cheering them on when, as a tier 1 engineer I know the game can’t be built as pitched, is the sort of bullshit that Shitizens are made from.

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