MTB-Fritz
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True but thats probably the main reason why we see titles like COD:IW and Mass Effect: Andromeda coming out, big publishers trying to get into this segment of the market without the NEED for any of croberts assets. I guess other companies were watching RSI closely and trying to judge its success but it should ve been appearant soon after they picked up development that “something” isnt right.
The modular design sounds alright at first but people were probably worrying how you can bring all the different modules together without horrend glitches and bugs. Other companies were trying out new stratgies in the past and surprised the world so I guess croberts got a period of “good will” from the professional crowd.
Unfortunately by now its quite appearant that he cannot do what he claims. Croberts simply doesnt provide any proof that would justify supporting his idea with hard cash. Publishers usually buy-out assets when the groundwork is done and works. No developing company lets in publishers if they dont have to in any case. For CS anybody willing to continue its development would ve to start at the very beginning and build up a completely new base which can actually do what croberts “promises” and thats simply not very cost-effective (so I d dare to state: better to build their own games).
I think the last time I opened a computer gaming magazine with shiny eyes and high expectations / excitement was when I was 16 or 17, thats almost 30 years back now. Somehow after reading so many reviews and “sneak peek” material shown I was able to figure out that a lot of the stuff gaming magazines write (all of them) doesnt quiet fit with the reality.
I got burned a few time by recommendations which sounded like a perfect fit for me on paper only to realize that the testers missed to mention the broken mechanics or missing content or how the game does NOT work as promised.
Most of the reviews…REGARDLESS of the game involved….are either praising it like the new messiah or “try” to stay neutral. The only times I ve seen game magazines actually ripping apart a game was when it was a proven desaster from companies which most probably would sink as a result. Or maybe if they got 80% of the playerbase touting the same horn. But thats not professional reporting in my eyes, something I was paying for when I bought that magazine. Time and time again gaming sites (the online variety as well) refused to ask the tough questions and didnt dare to make a projection which isnt “middle-ground”.
I eventually looked elsewhere for information about the games interesting me, this means I usually have to wait till the game is out and tested by REAL people who are not afraid to voice their opinion.
I regard gaming magazines as advertisement platforms only these days, even the “reports” are written in such a timid way thats its nay impossible to glean anything remotely “new” from them….you know….stuff I can find myself if I d chose to look into it hard enough. As for their “recommendations”……yeah….NOT.
23 (hint, its a movie ^^)
+1 for amusement reasons and because it does fit but to be fair such a list could be produced about everything.
I follow various websites about Star Citizen and while there are sane people in both camps a lot of “fans” seem to be crazy psychopaths (to be fair, the ratio probably is something like 90:10 pro:contra SC). The amount of self-delusion is breathtaking in the SC camp to a degree where I need to worry about these people having responsebilities or kids and are relied upon in real life.
I see many people trying to get a serious discussion going. They stay polite and to-the-facts and usually such threads simple get downvoted or attacked in a frenzy without giving any counter-arguments. The level of toxical behaviour is incredible and acts like a deterrent for “normal” people to participate else I d say we would be looking at a far bigger critical crowd.
The only reason IMO that croberts is STILL running his scam is because he successfully created a cult. Once people got involved mental sanity took its departure and remaining is the frenzied base which doesnt understand anything going on but react to “threats” by lashing out.
The company at large stands by and does not interfere or when it does….only in a very selective manner (attacks versus SC are taken out immediatly regardless how carefully they are constructed but personal attacks AGAINST critiques are strangely “okay”).
I ve seen so many discussions coming up against the tiniest things evolving into full-scale flame wars where people sound as if they would bash their heads in if they had the chance. And the reason for these things is that croberts is so non-saying or vague in his appearances that I wonder if he does it by design or simply is so stupid. He also refuses to clear up the mud by either giving a statement nor providing any tangible proof about progress of the game.
Both possebilities are worrying because one is a scam and the other makes you wonder if this project ever had a chance with such a stupid person in the lead.
Open Development is also a carrot on a stick because none of the backers actually “knows” what that means. There usually is no open development in other games. The best you can hope for is an early-access and alpha access to the game. Nothing remotely new and nothing more has been given so far. The additional “shows” are all filled with non-information and make me fall asleep but they certainly are filled with hype of which…sadly….over the years many of the given statements and deadlines has been proven wrong. I am currently involved with several early-access titles, not even announced as “open development”. These titles are working on much smaller funds yet I see more progress, ingame content and actual information given then what croberts provides. All I know is when I m following an AAA title over the years I dont get to see any financial data, detailed lists of current ingame features and can NOT visit the actual company grounds and expect to have a tour to see development on my own.
…..so far Star Citizen is exactly the same.
Listing all the “possible” features (admitted to not be in the game at the moment – see MVP) of the game only strengthens my worries about HOW the company will actually achieve this when the BASE you can see in their pre-alpha (I m participating in several alphas at the moment, this isnt one) doesnt support the claims in a technical way, yet, some cultists list them as if they are already in the game. Official statements given is reduced to “we are working on a LOT” and comes down to trust.
And theres the fundamental difference between people watching the game from a distance. Either they have “trust” or they dont. Not having any trust is okay too, its the companies responsebility to turn the non-believers……ERRRR….non-backers into customers. This would involve controlling your fan base to prevent them attacking everybody like a frenzied mob as soon somebody offers criticism because this isnt in your best interest as a company which WANTS as many customers as it can get.
Taking sides is easy as well if you approach the matter in a neutral stance.
Contra-arguments are often given in a detailed manner, include a lot of vocal experience (it doesnt matter if DS is a good or bad game designer….what he says makes “sense”) and often concern basic functionality like coding, underlying base mechanics and speaking from knowledge when it comes to actually turn all what was promised into actual game data (see technical debt). If I m on the look-out for information because I m trying to decide if I should become a backer too these are the threads which catch my eye because they touch concerns which are similar to mine.
The pro-SC crowd usually counters with belittlement, personal attacks, disregard or cut-and-paste replies which are as non-saying as the statements of croberts. Watching the map on stream makes me cringe because he really doesnt sound like a man who knows what hes doing. His underlings (some of them are very talented) biggest concern seems to be to not knowing what they actually can say and what not. Watching ingame footage isnt convincing enough and makes me wonder HOW in the world some people can be as involved as they actually are (I mean they act as if croberts is their family or they are being paid for it…..which some are rumored to be)
Following FACTS which are available and I m not going for opinins here (some say that the current PU is stable, contains 4x as much content as actually released games, and is a lot of “fun”……..yeah) there isnt a whole lot of reasons why I should be so passionate about the game…so far it hasnt delivered anything exceptional yet. But things change when I m financially involved I guess. Plus the fact that most of the backers are private people who have no experience with such things (just imagine publishers acting like this lol).
– The game was announced on kickstarter 2012
– croberts stated in his kickstarter campagin that work on the game was underway for 1 year prior to 2012
– the original target was 500.000$ and ended at 2.100.000+$
– additional crowdfunding on their own website resulted in a total of (so far) 116 MILLION $
– tied to the increased pool of money was an increasing list of stretch goals
– in the 4+ years (there are heated debates about WHEN the development of the game actually started) croberts hasnt managed to provide even the BASE game which was part of the 500.000 campaign
– lately the trickle of information (if you can ever call it that) has dried down and it has become very silent about croberts. You can see his underlings giving non-saying statements but there is no actual “proof” given about any progress in the game. The latest video material I was able to find on the net is dated back to 2014 with some advertisement videos in 2015.
Personally I am very able to ditinguish between a promotional video and actual ingame footage. Sadly there is hardly any ingame footage available which would prove progress but a lot of promo videos which show “dreams”. So far there is no “tangible prove” about seamless planet-surface-to-space transitions (sorry folks, what you saw is a promo video), there is no ingame prove about PG content at least I havent seen any planetary landings yet.
I was curious in the beginning because croberts really touched a site in me which WANTS all he promises but after the years it appears that he promised FIRST and THEN started to think how to implement everything he promised. Most of the things I can see ingame at the moment seem to be dead ends which cannot be improved anymore and the lack of new stuff or information given makes me think that croberts began to realize he cannot do this thing. I hope there will be a book in the future touching the details and inner workings of this whole project (I m not talking about the current “projections” available on the net)…I m sure to buy one. It will be very amusing and entertaining in hindsight to people who actually lived through it.
There is a fanbase of the game acting like school children which makes me scratch my head because I am actually watching adults. People on youtube having “fun” only act in a make-believe manner because the actual game crashes, glitches and doesnt look remarkable in any way compared to actual products. Yet they claim FPS and flight mechanics in SC are already superior to the likes of COD (….seriously?) and ED (…again….what?). Its like watching a picture of blue color yet people claim its red.
Personally I ve made up my mind back at the end of 2014. Everything since then only confirms my inital and final impression. Its a little sad to see current backers becoming confused and desperate but that is reality catching up. When years before it was thousands of white knights coming down on any criticism (being so large that even gaming sites trembled in fear of the backlash and decided to hold their piece and not ask the tough questions (shame on you btw)) I can see this crowd being a lot smaller now and mostly containing the fanatics who are so blinded or heavily invested that its appearant they dont think for themselves anymore. I believe this course will hold up and we ll eventually see a catastrophic collapse of the game…..personally I m surprised its able to hold on this long. I m still watching the whole thing because my sense of justice enjoys the exposure of liars and scams. Examples from the world of politics sadly show that there hardly is any punishment for this kind of behaviour (financial mismanagement and blatant lies) but it ll be nice to see people “waking up”.
I guess SC is a large animal so the dying takes its time but the grave wound leading to its demins has been appearant for some time now.
Wow….I wanted to give a quick reply and this came out, sorry bout that 🙂
My personal standpoint is on Mr.Smarts side not necesseraliy due to the informations he provide but mainly by the reactions and informations CIG provides. I cannot help to admit tho that Mr.Smart certainly helped to highlight CIGs shortcomings and failings.
The whole thing has degenerated into a mud slinging war from both camps making neutral observations increasingly difficult.
As I said….I made up my mind but I can transfer into people who dont know the first thing about this project. For them its very easy to get confused by the sheer MASS of material at hand plus…asking critical questions about almost ANYTHING is met with hostility and belittlement by the SC crowd. CIG must be aware of the toxity of its community as its ever present on the forum AND gets public light as well. While publicity usually is a good thing I d dare to say THIS kind of publicity only helps in turning away newcomers and their money which CIG is very dependant on.
Yet….they do nothing to control the flames and hate. This alone speaks volumes for me.
This latest interview by Chris Roberts only confirms what I m thinking. He is incredibly vague about what he actually means by his statements leaving the definition and clarification to the community which actually does just that (as seen in the thread link) so emptions come up again and split the whole discussion into “us versus them” groups. Something Chris Roberts could ve avoided from the start by being clear and open in his statements. I mean the guy READS from a transcript for gods sake and STILL he fumbles around with lots of pauses and “ah….”s. I wonder if its blank pages he holds in his hands.
If I would be invested into the game and have considerable resources put into it…..then yes I would also see his statements of confirmation and overlook his funbles.
I am not tho so the blatant “run-around” of hot topics and vagueness of informations are extremely obvious to me and also extremely annoying when all I want is crystal clear informations about the game itself. There is none given. The only thing thats pointed out (by the community I d like to note) is the PU…..which is ANYTHING BUT reassurance that the game is in any state to be released, makes progress or best…..a “good” game convincing me to pay them hard cash.
Back to Chris Roberts. He sees this. Hell…he even became so involved at several points that he lashed out personally so the argument of “CEOs have better things to do then to handle this minutia” is utter BS to me. He does care what people think. He monitors (or let monitor) foreign forums and sites in order to track down hotspots and follows the public awareness of his game. And STILL he decides to present himself and the game the way he does.
This is “proof” to me that the situation at hand (toxic community, constant redesigns, handling of matters be it refunds or otherwise) is made by DESIGN and them being very CONSCIOUS of what they are doing.
I ve been following SC from the very start and read I dont know how much about the whole thing. I certainly dont consider myself “clueless” even tho I didnt pledge (lol) or play the “game” yet. There certainly are enough videos out there highlighting and investigating enough of it to enable me to make up my mind. Chris Roberts and CIG “lost” me very early on due to their management and speed of progress. The very early excuses like “we do have the money now but we need to build up our own studios first so be patient” sounded exactly like that even back then…..excuses. Its been YEARS since then and “progress” if you can even call it that has been embarassing.
Nowadays I simply follow the whole thing for amusement only. Its hillarious how “blind” people can become to simple logic and how artfully words can be used (by either side) to make an argument.
Above all I see Chris Roberts….HIDING behind his “fans” (really guys…you are a cult….look it up) just surviving and waiting out the crisis. He WILL crash down…..no doubt about it. I m simply worried he ll manage to get a “jail-free” pass eventually and a lil annoyed at how long it takes for some big animal like “Star Citizen” to finally die.
As CEO it would be in his power to direct awareness of his game. After all hes obliged to it….”trasnparent development” and all that you know. Yet he continues to NOT give any definite answers and doesnt present himself like a person who knows what hes doing. I m saying he knows exactly what hes doing because he knows (probably him and only a couple more people) in what state his game really is. So he plays for time and tries to drag out the inevitable as much as he can.
That day will be EPIC 🙂
P.S. if you find any typos or grammatical mistakes you can keep them. English isnt my native language.
